Easy as Falling
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM, mostly preslash. Harry really doesn't like the way things are going in the wizarding world right now. But who's going to do something about it? Him, that's who! Or, how Harry became a Benevolently Snarky Dark Lord.
1. Easy Decisions

**Title: **Easy as Falling

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco pre-slash

**Warnings: **Somewhat crackish humor, a bit of violence

**Rating: **PG-13

**Summary: **Harry doesn't really like the way things are going in the wizarding world. But who's going to do something about it?...Him, that's who!

**Author's Notes: **This is the first chapter in a series of linked arcs about Harry becoming a Benevolently Snarky Dark Lord. It's a prequel, or backstory, to my one-shot "Charming When He Needs to Be." This will feature irregular updates and chapters or stories of various length to explain how the wizarding world ended up the way it did in "Charming."

**Easy as Falling**

_Chapter One—Easy Decisions_

Harry leaned back on his chair, regarded the generous serving of Firewhisky in front of him, and sighed.

"That's the seventh time you've done that this evening, mate," Ron said, without looking up from the chessboard that was spread in front of him and Seamus. Seamus had apparently managed to give Ron a game, something Harry couldn't do because he had no sense of strategy. The pawns _could _defeat the king, Harry kept arguing, if you just gave them a chance. Hadn't he done it with Voldemort? "We're getting a little tired of it."

"That means you're not paying attention to the game, Weasley," Seamus chided, leaning forwards until he nearly buried his nose in the pieces. "And that means _I'm_ going to win."

"You wish, Finnigan."

Seamus laughed and took a noisy drink. Harry gazed at him and sighed again. Seamus was one of the best examples he knew of how the wizarding world hadn't turned out the way it should. Seamus had seemed so set up for a great life at the end of the war: he had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and survived, he knew there was more to life than Quidditch and tormenting Slytherins, and he had seen the worst excesses of the Ministry and adults. He could help make the wizarding world better, or at least make sure that it didn't get any worse by the way he lived his life.

But Seamus had cursed a centaur the next year when one tried to come out of the Forbidden Forest to Hogwarts to talk about something to McGonagall, and everything had just gone downhill from there.

Seamus had said that he thought the centaur was trying to attack Hogwarts, but even if he'd really believed that, it was just another example of how paranoid everyone had become, and Harry knew it didn't stop there.

People mistreated house-elves. People went right back to accusing each other of stupid things based on blood prejudice as though Voldemort being around hadn't _completely _discredited those ideas. People fawned on Harry at one moment and then sent Howlers when Skeeter made up a story that Harry was cheating on Ginny with Cho, right before they broke up.

Harry had fought for a _better _world, one where people didn't have to go in fear of attacks at night. And he supposed that he had succeeded in that no one feared the Death Eaters appearing out of nowhere to kill them.

But nothing else had really changed. And Harry knew another Voldemort could arise someday because no one would prevent it.

_I'll fight as long as I'm here._

But he wouldn't live forever, even if he lived a really long time. Harry gnawed on his lip. He had tried to educate people, and when someone asked him to make a speech, he always agreed as long as he got to choose the topic of the speech. So he had talked about the necessity for reconciliation and the necessity to protect the world they shared, whether they were pure-bloods or Muggleborns or something else.

No one tried to explain to him why they were so determined to keep being stupid, but Harry thought he knew it. It was harder to change than to just go on being stupid—the way you had always lived.

Maybe he should do something…

But what? Harry sighed again, absently dodged the pawn Ron hurled at his head, and swallowed his Firewhisky. He had come up with no new or good plan yet, and that meant he had to wait. He stood up and made for the door of the pub.

Hermione opened it before he could get there. Harry stopped and blinked at her. She never usually came to their drinking nights, because she got enough of Ron insisting that they play chess in their daily lives.

But now her eyes flashed, and she strode over and slapped the paper she held down in the middle of the chessboard, upsetting the pieces and making Seamus and Ron both say "Oi!" at the same time. Harry snickered, because the moment deserved it and no one else would. Hermione certainly didn't notice, since all her being seemed concentrated in the finger that she pointed at the middle of the paper.

"Look what they're doing to Hogwarts!" she hissed. Harry was impressed. She had almost said, "Fuck you!" in Parseltongue.

He leaned over her shoulder to see what she was talking about, feeling only mild interest. There was probably another argument about whether they should put a war memorial on the Hogwarts grounds, with the professors saying that students needed to remember the brave people who had died there and parents saying that it would scar their children.

But his amusement died when he realized the picture Hermione had pointed out was one of the full Board of Governors at Hogwarts, with Minister Leonard Tillipop standing in the middle of them, in front of the gates of Hogwarts. They held up a giant key, and behind them, the gates were locked.

_HOGWARTS CLOSED!_ said the headline.

Harry looked at the words underneath it, skimming the article rather than reading it. He was so upset that his breath was coming short, and he had to rub his hands on his robes to keep from seizing the paper and wrenching it around.

_…not teaching our children what they need to know…realized that there's no reason to hesitate…the Ministry needs to use its power…regrettable lack of dedication on the part of the Headmistress...classes that will teach young wizards to be good citizens…_

Harry stepped back from the table with a fire in the head. He knew what _that _meant. Oh, did he know.

It would mean that Dumbledore had lost the secondary war he'd fought all along, the war to keep the Ministry from taking over Hogwarts. Dumbledore had done some stupid things, and some things he didn't need to do, and there were people who thought that Hogwarts should never have been as independent as it became, that Dumbledore had preferred playing stupid games with Fudge to actually _acting _as the school's Headmaster. But Harry knew that he had done it in response to the Ministry overreaching its boundaries, not the other way around.

And Harry had thought McGonagall would be able to keep it free, or else that the new Ministry might not be as insistent on being stupid as Fudge's old one.

_I should have known better. _

_Yes, you should have._

Harry shrugged. As so often, when he had these conversations with himself, what mattered more than the words was the conclusion he had come to.

"They can't do that," he said abruptly, and only when he heard silence fall over the room did he realize that everyone else had been talking. He looked up, and blinked when he found them all looking at him instead of the article. Surely _that _was the thing in the room to make them gape, if anything was?

"I don't see how you think you can stop them," Seamus said, giving him a look that was burned free of any glaze the drink might have put there. "I mean—really, mate. You're Harry Potter, but you know the Ministry doesn't give a fuck about that."

"I know the Ministry won't pay attention to me," Harry said, because he knew all the arguments, he could hear them burning through the fire in his head. The fire he'd lit was bigger and would put out _that _one, that was all. "I know the Board of Governors has the right to do whatever they want with the school, and that most people won't care, and that some pure-bloods will like it, and that no complaints will go anywhere, and that McGonagall probably did all she could. _I know._ The thing is, none of it matters. It shouldn't be this way."

Hermione immediately nodded. "You're right. It shouldn't. And that means we should go to the Wizengamot, and that means—"

"Think _that'll _happen?" Once again, Seamus was the voice of pessimism, leaning back with a snort and cradling his drink against his choice. "There are still people on there who were chosen by Fudge. And people who're even more conservative than _he _was. No, our Harry's not going to make any changes that way."

It was almost comical to see the way Hermione's face fell and she blinked, then looked around as if hoping that a situation might land from the sky. "Well—I mean, who else should we go to? The Ministry won't listen, and the Board of Governors won't listen. The Wizengamot _might_ listen. They're the only legal authority we've got left."

"I'm the only one," Harry said.

"But you've barely been a full Auror for a year," Hermione said, frowning at him. "And you know that Aurors don't have jurisdiction over Hogwarts."

"I didn't mean it that way," Harry said, and then realized he had to do something, because all of them were staring at him as if he and not the world had gone mad. "Look, Hermione, cast a Privacy Charm, will you?"

She nodded and took out her wand and did. That made Harry smile, a bit. They were still his friends, and they would stand by him and defend him and do as he asked when it was really important, without questions.

"Look," Harry said, as the sounds of the room faded and a small circle of mist sprang up around the table so that no one could see _exactly _what he was doing. He held his hand out and spread his fingers. He still needed to concentrate to do this, but his main problem right now was keeping the magic from running out of control and blowing up in his friends' faces.

He held his hand there, staring at his fingers, and the magic came. The skin on his hand rippled, and then a buttercup grew up from his palm. He held it out silently to them, and Seamus drew in his breath and Hermione flinched backwards and Ron stared at him.

"You can grow flowers from your hands?" he asked blankly. "What bloody use is _that _going to be?"

Harry smiled at him in turn. Because Ron asked the _important _questions. "It's something I can only do because my magic is so powerful," he said quietly, and flexed his fingers until the buttercup turned into golden dust and crumbled down around them. He didn't think anyone would have noticed, with the combination of the Privacy Charm and his friends all crowded around him, but he thought it just as well not to leave evidence. "I've had this strength for a long time now. I think—that summer after the war, when we were free to just _think_ and decide what we wanted?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged a small glance. They had decided what they wanted was each other. Seamus shut his eyes for a second and nodded, and Harry wondered, for the same second, what Seamus had been doing that summer. He'd never asked. "Yeah," Seamus whispered. "So?"

"It came to me then," Harry said. "And I was so _angry _at first, because why didn't it show up during the war when I could have _used _it? I've never found a use for it since then."

He glanced at the newspaper on the table, and nodded a little. "Now, I think I have."

* * *

Draco sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He stared at the report on finance in front of him with unseeing eyes, while the other reports—on pure-blood attitudes since the war, on the number of Muggleborns in the wizarding world, on the people in the Wizengamot who would throw their weight behind him—teetered around his desk in the faint wind of his sigh.

Who would have known that preparing to take the Minister's office could be so much _work_?

Draco leaned back and shut his eyes, refusing to think about Galleon figures for just one _bloody _moment. It seemed like years ago, instead of a year, when he'd looked around at the weak, fissured, faction-ridden Ministry, and discovered, with a rush of golden power, that the Minister's position itself might be within his grasp.

He had worked for that goal ever since, convinced he could finally have the power and the prestige he had always dreamed of.

It was on the brink of success that he wanted to stop.

_Why? _Draco opened his eyes and studied the report he'd paid several former employees of Gringotts good money to prepare. It wasn't a sure thing yet, but close to a sure thing. He could win this election. He could aspire to the seat of power that no Malfoy had ever tried to take. Most of his ancestors had been content with the power of an _éminence grise _instead.

But there was no challenge to it now. He knew he would win, unless he made a disastrous mistake. The people surrounding him, championing him, backing him, lending him money, were mostly nervous because they had known other Ministerial candidates who made mistakes on the very eve of the election. But Draco knew how to restrain his passions, sexual and otherwise. He wouldn't be caught with a secret lover or tricked into a verbal faus pax.

_Was it the challenge that made it worthwhile? _

It seemed it had. Draco grimaced. He had thought of the Ministry as a golden chair. Now it seemed more likely to turn out to be a golden chain, simply because there was no one left who could challenge him.

The world hadn't been fair to him since the war, so he had come up with a way to make it so—and now he didn't know if he had ever felt so alive as when he was struggling and planning and fighting not to lose the Manor, or to obtain a position in the Ministry, or to make sure that his mother wasn't persecuted years after the war, or for the ability to become a serious candidate.

_I can't draw back now, though. _It would be stupid, and above all, Draco had accepted that, while they lived in an absurd world and most people behaved without a grain of sense in their heads, _he _did not want to do that. He would have to go ahead and mount the golden chair whether or not it was what he truly wanted.

For a moment, he wondered what his father would have said if he could see Draco now, and he had to smile. _Yes, ultimate power over the wizarding world, access to more money than would ever come my way in the course of normal bribes, and people willing to become allies who wouldn't speak the Malfoy name without spitting a year ago, and I'm turning my back on it because it's not personally fulfilling._

Draco sat up with a shake of his shoulders. Well. He had done something stupid in not questioning himself enough, but he couldn't avoid any further mistakes by refusing to run. That would leave his plans in shambles, and no one would take him seriously for years. That might give him a challenge, yes, but not the kind he wanted.

Why not remake the Minister's office in his own image? Why not find truly challenging political situations and enter them? There was nothing to say that _all _his maneuvers had to be behind closed doors, or careful in case he angered someone too much for them to stay on his side. He had enough supporters to weather the loss of a few, and the wizarding world was still too divided, even now, to move in a herd on any one issue.

Still, as he went back to annotating the report, he couldn't help wishing that there was just _one_ powerful enemy worthy of respect. Someone he could fling himself against and fight.

_Someone who's a rival._


	2. Oops

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—Oops_

Harry appeared outside the gates of Hogwarts, and stood for a moment looking at the school. This early on a Friday morning, it should have been quiet, as students sat in classes scribbling notes or performing spells or, if it was Binns, falling asleep. No, scratch that, some of them would have been falling asleep in any class, never mind who taught it.

But there was a different kind of deep quiet around the school now, one that Harry had never seen, or heard, if you could even talk about hearing quiet in the first place. The banners were gone from the towers of the school, the ones that symbolized all the Houses, put there after the war. No owls soared back and forth. The grass beneath the immense gates, which Harry had appeared outside, already looked long and unclipped, although Harry knew that was silly. The Board of Governors had just declared Hogwarts closed yesterday. It hadn't had time to look abandoned yet.

The locked gates and the CLOSED sign on them could give the appearance of desolation if anything could, though.

Harry took a step forwards. He could feel the grass on the other side of the gates rippling, not in normal wind but in the wind of power he projected ahead of him. The sparks were rising up around him, the sparks he normally kept concealed, because he never wanted to burn everything, and the constant smell of incinerated paper was what he would have surrounded him if he had let his magic have free play at his Ministry job.

The school crouched there, and there was no sense, now, that there was a spirit worth fighting for. They had successfully destroyed every trace of that.

Harry stretched out a hand. He had come here for a specific purpose, to remind himself of what was at stake and keep the fire burning, but now he wanted something more.

The chain linking the gates shut blew apart in a silent cascade of metal. The last thing Harry wanted right now was noise that would bring someone from Hogsmeade running to see what was wrong.

But bloody hell, it wasn't _right _that a chain should keep Hogwarts shut off from the world like that.

As he moved through the now-open gates and into the school grounds, he let his sparks have their way and burn down the CLOSED sign. They were so swift and so hot that the sign faded from view like a mirage. Harry smiled, viciously satisfied, and kept moving, reining the sparks back in when they would have started on the grass.

The gamekeeper's cottage showed no smoke. They had made Hagrid move out, then. Harry stared at it and resolved, quietly, that that was one of the first things he would change. Hagrid had no other real home anywhere in the world. He was probably staying with Madame Maxime right now, but his heart was here.

And so was Harry's.

Harry turned back towards the school, and swallowed. His heart was beating fast enough to make the sight in front of his eyes waver. He had never come back to the school except on the anniversaries of the Battle of Hogwarts and Dumbledore's funeral. For those, he couldn't stay away, but he spent as little time as he could on the grounds and left as soon as his part was over. The _Prophet _had started spreading rumors that he hated the school, or resented the professors for not protecting him better when he was a student, or something else equally as stupid.

But it _was _stupid. Harry still considered Hogwarts his home. He had stayed away because he was afraid that if he didn't, he would never find another place where he felt as comfortable. And grown adults didn't look back towards their schooldays with such longing unless they were wankers like Malfoy. To him, House identity was all-important.

Harry didn't think and dream about being a Gryffindor, though. He dreamed about being here: flying above the Quidditch Pitch, standing at the windows of the Owlery, eating in the Great Hall. This was home.

And nothing else would ever take its place.

_Strange that it took the place almost being closed to make me realize that._

Harry moved slowly across the grass, breathing in the air that wasn't like it was anywhere else. Maybe that was stupid and maybe it was sentiment, but he could feel his shoulders relaxing, burdens he hadn't even realized he still carried swirling and settling to the ground like snow. He tilted his head back and shut his eyes, and tapped his fingers on his thigh for a moment.

"Hello?"

Harry turned sharply. For some reason, he had assumed that he would find no one here; all the students were supposed to have left yesterday, and he had expected the professors to scatter to summer homes as they awaited the news of what would happen to Hogwarts.

But a slender, tall figure was standing in the open doors, watching him. It took Harry a minute to recognize her; he might not have done it if a wind hadn't caught her grey hair and lifted a strand of it free. As she turned her head to pat it back into place, the light flashed off her glasses.

Harry smiled and moved forwards. "Headmistress," he called. "It's me, Harry."

She started and looked at him with new eyes, then shook her head as though to clear her face from some clinging gauze. "It really is you, child," she whispered. "You came back. But why not?" she added, looking over Harry's shoulder as though she expected Ron and Hermione behind him. "You want to say goodbye to the shade of Hogwarts as she was. Whatever she is when they finish with her, it won't be that."

Harry took a quick breath and shook his head. The pain in McGonagall's voice was the worst thing of all, worse than the initial newspaper article about Hogwarts's closing. "No," he said. "Not that. I've come here to save it."

McGonagall considered him, and then, to Harry's astonishment, pulled her glasses off and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Harry cleared his throat and glanced off to the side. He hadn't meant to embarrass McGonagall, but it seemed he had done that without meaning to.

"Oh, you poor, dear, brave, _good _soul," McGonagall whispered. "So much a hero…but it's too late, Harry. I've tried as hard as I could to think of a way to save it, but the Board of Governors closed every legal loophole, and Minister Tillipop is backing them up. Maybe Albus could have seen a way around it, but I'm not Albus."

"And that's the way it _should _be," Harry said strongly. "Not everyone _should _be him," he added, when McGonagall looked at him as though he'd gone mad. "He had his own way of handling the Ministry. But the Ministry was different in his time, Headmistress. You should be yourself."

She studied him a second, and then nodded. "I agree," she said, with a dry tone in her voice that suggested to Harry what was coming next. "Since there is no one else I _can _be. But I don't see what that has to do with any plan to save Hogwarts."

"I don't mean to go through legal pathways," Harry said.

McGonagall was startled into staring at him again. Then she drew herself up, in a way that made her wince. Harry wondered if it was her heart bothering her, or just her conscience. "I'm sorry, Harry," she said, drawing her wand. "I can't be a party to any method that breaks the law. That takes away even the miniscule chance that we might get Hogwarts back someday, when the Board grows tired of the maintenance that their new classes will take."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "I'm not asking you to join me, Headmistress. When I came here today, I didn't even think anyone was still here. And it's not something you could stop if you wanted to. You don't have to pick a side. Just sit back and deal with what's going to happen afterwards."

McGonagall brandished her wand in front of her as though she assumed he would charge into the entrance hall and try to claim control of the school that way. "I'm not as formidable as I once was, but I can still stop you," she said.

"Stop what?" Harry couldn't help countering, with a small smile. Dancing around the rules set by his Auror instructors had prepared him well for a verbal duel with McGonagall. "You don't know what I intend to do yet."

"You must want access to the school, or you wouldn't have come here." McGonagall's eyes were so narrow they almost vanished, and Harry thought she would arch her back and spit at him any second. "Well, you _can't have it_. I'm not going to let you do something that could jeopardize the entire future of the school."

"That future is already gone, if they get their way," Harry pointed out. "The children will learn what the Ministry wants them to learn. How pure-bloods are superior, or how there's magic they don't need to know. I honestly don't know what would be worse, the way Voldemort would teach them or the way Umbridge did, but it's not going to happen." He shuddered at the thought of Umbridge coming back to teach. The Ministry would probably hire her, too, if they could find her in whatever hole she'd concealed herself from fear of Harry, because she was an "experienced teacher."

"There's nothing you can do against the whole might of the Ministry," McGonagall said. She'd lowered her wand. "Except try to raise an army with the power of your name, and I know you won't do that."

Harry shook his head. "I don't need an army."

McGonagall came down through the doors at that, and walked up close to him, reaching out to feel his head. Harry patiently let her put her hand on his scar and forehead in all the ways she wanted, and then said, "I don't have a fever, Headmistress. I'm not sick. This is something I could have done a while ago, but there was never a cause I cared enough about." He looked up at the school, and pictured owls flying free around the towers, delivering messages to students who learned about all sorts of things, whether they were Ministry-approved or not. He nodded. "I have to save it."

"You may be sick but not have a fever," McGonagall said, and Harry blinked. Her words were _careful_. "I know this is a bad time to mention it, Mr. Potter, but have you been to St. Mungo's lately? They have an interesting program in which Healers do nothing but talk to the patients, just talk, and sometimes they can figure out what's wrong with them that way."

Harry snorted. "Oh, all right, you don't think I have a fever. You just think I belong on the Janus Thickey ward."

McGonagall dropped her wand. While she was picking it back up, she studied Harry warily from the corner of her eye, and then shook her head a little. "I think nothing of the sort."

"Yes, you do," Harry said, and patted her arm. "Look, Headmistress, I have a lot of respect for you. Let's not ruin it with your lies."

McGonagall snatched her arm away, and actually spat at him, the way a cat would. Harry grinned at her. "Where was that spirit when the Board of Governors was talking about closing the school?" he taunted her gently. "We need it."

"Mr. Potter, I cannot _prevent_—"

"It's Auror Potter, actually," Harry said, and then paused and thought about things. "Although probably not after today," he added, and reached his hands out towards the school, curving his fingers around and up.

He had never tried to summon this much magic before. Usually, he just lay in bed and felt it play under his skin, bouncing and jumping up and down. His head would fill with visions of what he _could _do, and he had to dismiss the visions to go to sleep. They weren't even dreams, just daydreams, the most distracting kind.

Now, he didn't have to dismiss them, but he was afraid he might have ignored his magic for too long, and it wouldn't come when he wanted it.

No need to fear, as he ought to have known, he thought, remembering the buttercup he had conjured for his friends in the pub yesterday. The magic burst through him like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Harry gasped aloud, sinking to his knees but still extending his hands, holding them up so the power would have an exit.

Having it leave the palms of his hands was _weird. _The flesh on his fingers seemed to swish aside like doors, and between one second and the next enormous beams of light were streaming towards Hogwarts, gentle but implacable.

McGonagall gasping behind him was the only sound, though. Well, Harry reckoned he had to count his heartbeat and breathing, but he was so caught up in the high of his power that he didn't hear them. As such. He reckoned they were continuing just because he was still alive.

The light surrounded Hogwarts and danced into the bricks. It dived down to the foundations, explored the towers, and wandered into classrooms. Harry knew he wasn't done yet, though. He had to keep Hogwarts absolutely _safe. _That meant controlling access to it, but not preventing people from coming in, because of course the whole point was that students should still be able to attend.

So, when the light wanted to snap up gates, he told it _no_. The light pouted at him and danced around his head in a crown, and clothed his shoulders with what Harry supposed probably looked like golden robes from the outside, and in other ways didn't want to obey him, and whined in in his ears with a noise like bees humming.

_No, _Harry told it flatly as he stood up. He wouldn't cow the magic on his knees. He still had his hands out, dedicated to the purpose of protecting the castle, but he was the source of the magic, not the other way around, and he wouldn't let it do whatever he wanted. _I want you to keep people with hostile intent towards Hogwarts out. Anyone who feels neutral to it or likes it can get inside._

The magic circled, and then images formed in front of him, golden as though touched with summer sunlight. Harry recognized some of the wizards from the picture of the Board of Governors standing in front of Hogwarts, as they walked through the corridors and looked up admiringly at the portraits, or peered into the House bedrooms with fond smiles on their faces.

Harry growled. He took the point. People who liked Hogwarts might still have hostile intent towards it, the way Harry defined it. The problem was that he wanted to keep Hogwarts the same, and someone who wanted to change it could want that without also, physically, wanting the school destroyed.

_Then what's the solution? _

The magic danced in response to that thought, and Harry felt it rushing over him, much the same way it had over the school. He stood as passive as he could under the onslaught, swallowing when he felt the way the magic pushed on his throat and head. He was still master here. If he didn't like whatever change the magic was working on him, he had the ability to reverse it.

The shower of golden light faded away with an abruptness that startled Harry. He looked down at his hands, thinking he _must _have changed with the way the magic had concentrated on him, but it didn't look like it. For one thing, he still had ragged fingernails, and if the magic had made him into an idealized image of himself or something, Harry was _sure _it would have taken care of ragged fingernails.

Frowning, he turned to McGonagall and opened his mouth to ask her if she knew what had happened.

With his first words, the stones of Hogwarts _thrummed_.

Harry whipped around and stared at the school. He could see all through it, he realized abruptly. He knew how many stones there were in the walls without asking, and the walls themselves thinned until he could see the rooms inside them, and he knew that mice lived in one of the dungeons, and he could feel the heartbreak of the house-elves who had worked in the kitchens until yesterday.

Harry cleared his throat. A bell rang. He walked a little nearer to Hogwarts. A tower trembled. He stretched out his hands, and a breeze rose in the Forbidden Forest and swept over him, tugging his fringe back from his forehead.

"So, uh," Harry said to McGonagall, and tried to ignore the way that Hogwarts seemed to orient on him. "So do you, uh, know what happened?"

McGonagall shut her eyes. Harry had no way to read the expression on her face, no _experience _with something like it.

"You have apparently become an avatar of Hogwarts, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, emphasizing the _Mr. _"The focal point through which it channels its energy. The representative of it to other people."

"But—hang on, you get avatars with gods and things like that," Harry said. "The people they choose to embody them. Or something. Or sometimes a single magical creature will be the avatar of a whole group of them, like phoenixes choosing _A _Phoenix. The biggest one. The focal point. I don't think you _can _have an avatar of a place. I mean, if you had that, the place would have to be self-aware and have a will, and…"

He trailed off. McGonagall had opened her eyes, and Harry could read her face now, although it wasn't comforting to be able to.

"Holy _shit_," Harry said, and Hogwarts sang.


	3. Anything for a Normal Life, Except That

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Anything For a Normal Life, Except That_

"Only three minutes until we have to be out there."

Christie Rosenthal's voice was calm, but Draco could see her hand reflected in the mirror that stood before him, clenched down hard enough that he feared she would break her thumb. He reached back and tapped on her fist until it relaxed, then studied his face in the mirror again.

Signs of weariness. He could have concealed them with glamours, but he saw no need. The public would _expect _a candidate who looked battle-worn. Minister Tillipop wasn't popular, but most Ministers weren't. Someone who took the contest less than seriously could still lose. Sometimes people would vote against them simply because they thought they didn't look serious enough.

Draco's hair was perfect, though. He was known for that. It wouldn't do to abandon a gesture that might come to seem significant as a signature _now_. And he wore dove-grey robes that swished around him with the perfect silence of expensive fur.

He turned back to Rosenthal and nodded. "Now we're ready."

"With only one minute left to _be _ready," Rosenthal muttered, but she shook her head and gestured him towards the door that led out onto the front steps of Malfoy Manor. Draco smiled as he followed her. He'd never had any reason to regret hiring her to coordinate his public appearances and leak "secret" information to the press, but she did have her nervous moments.

Cameras started flashing the minute they stepped out the door. Draco swept a bow and stood where he was for a moment, turning his head slowly from side to side as though he simply wanted to count how many people were waiting in his gardens. The fact that it would allow those snapping pictures to see all the many angles of his face and how handsome he remained was purely incidental.

When Rosenthal, who had taken up a position at his side, gestured again, Draco walked the rest of the way forwards, to the edge of the steps. He bowed to the watchers and tapped his wand against his throat. There was an immediate hissing for silence, mostly from the people he'd planted in the crowd.

"Thank you for coming," Draco said, as grave and solemn as he could make himself be when giddy delight spiraled up his throat. "It's an honor to know that so many people believe _me, _who was tried on Dark magic charges not so long ago, capable of being Minister."

He saw a few glances flicker through the crowd, and didn't smile, although he wanted to. There would be some of Tillipop's people here, too—not many, since he didn't take Draco seriously as an opponent yet—and they had planned to bring up his past.

Draco had come to believe in taking the most dangerous weapons out of his enemies' hands before they could use them. Potter's strategy of the Disarming Spell made sense to him now.

"I still wear the grotesque brand of my slavery to a madman," Draco continued, and turned his left arm towards the cameras. Although it wasn't obvious because of the outer robe he wore to cover it, his inner sleeve was short, short enough to display the Dark Mark and the blazing ugliness of it to the crowd.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Rosenthal close her own eyes and move her lips as if practicing a speech. She hadn't been sure about this tactic, and had finally shouted at Draco when he told her he was going to use it and she could quit his campaign if she wanted. There had been swearing, something he wasn't used to with Rosenthal.

On the other hand, he had heard plenty of it from his parents and peers when he first made his decision to go after the Minister's office known. So he bore with it now, and let everyone look at the Mark as long as he liked.

"Aren't you afraid that some people will always distrust you?" a voice called out from the crowd.

_Pansy, _Draco knew, and he bowed his head and assumed a mournful expression. "Some people will," he murmured. "But I hope there are others who will look deeply into matters and admit that they were wrong, that I have tried to redeem myself. I have hopes of forgiveness, too." He looked up and produced his best smile. Beside him, he could hear Rosenthal's breathing calming down.

"But why _should _we trust someone who practiced Dark magic?" demanded a second voice from a different corner.

_And Blaise, _Draco thought, with a flicker of joy that he didn't allow to make its way onto his face. His friends had proved more loyal than he had dared to hope. "That's not something I can tell you you _should _do," Draco responded. "Everyone must make the decision for themselves. What I can ask for is a fair chance, for intelligent people to read and hear everything and make up their minds for themselves, instead of blindly believing the first side of the story that comes along."

He saw Rosenthal relax a little more, and would have nodded to her if he hadn't known the cameras would catch it and it might look suspicious. They had to present a totally united and confident front for right now.

But this was the right tactic to take, Draco was certain. Readers liked to be told they were intelligent, and there was no reason to hold back when he was a new challenger and placing his secrets out in front of everyone. The one big advantage of the way he'd been held and tried was that everyone _knew _about his horrible past. People could use it against him, but not in a way that made it seem more horrible than it was. It wasn't new news.

But what had gone on in Leonard Tillipop's office, behind closed doors…

A smile would also be the wrong gesture just now, so Draco held still, and looked grave instead, and waited for the next question, which would probably be a real one. His friends had managed to set the tone of the first part of the discussion, but Draco doubted they would be lucky enough to continue dominating it.

Sure enough, Rita Skeeter was the one who leaned forwards and smiled at him and launched a question she must have thought would strike him hard. "What do you think of the Board of Governors' intention to close Hogwarts? Isn't your _father _on the Board?"

"He used to be," Draco said, with a slow nod of his head, as though admiring the judicious way she had put the question. "But after his arrest, he was dismissed from the Board, of course. I don't blame them," he added, because he could see a way to turn the question to his own advantage. "No one could know then whether he would redeem himself or not, or who else in his family might do so."

Skeeter blinked, and her quill ceased to move for a second. Draco smiled sweetly back at her. _You should have done some basic research._

Skeeter shook her head and hopped back into position a moment later. "But what about their intention? We know that Minister Tillipop supports them. Would you, were you to earn the position?"

What Draco wanted to say was, _They did it because they knew Hogwarts was independent of them and producing wizards who didn't always grow up believing Ministry doctrine. No wonder they decided to close it. And no, I wouldn't support it, but I wouldn't change it, either, until I knew that I had enough people behind me to do so._

True answers weren't welcome in a political campaign, though, and Draco had known that from the time he was young. So he didn't need Rosenthal holding her breath as if he was about to ruin his chances. It must be, Draco thought tolerantly, that she knew, from their strategy meetings, that he _did _have those thoughts, and feared they would simply overpower his tongue and rush out someday.

Now, Draco smiled temperately. "I find it a bad idea to criticize the ideas of a political opponent this close to the election day," he said. "Moreover, ungenerous."

Quills scribbled all over. Draco caught Rosenthal's eye and smiled for the cameras. Yes, of course that made good copy, and of course he would forget it and criticize Tillipop again once the rumors started. No one who had a voice to speak of it would care.

A few other reporters asked questions, some about his Hogwarts days, some about his activities since the war. Blaise managed to sneak in one about donations. Draco answered them all easily, with one eye on a tall woman who stood in the back and frowned down at her quill as though she wanted it to move still faster. She was meditating something, and Draco didn't want the question to take him by utter surprise when she asked it.

But when she looked up at him and asked, "And what is your relationship with Auror Harry Potter like?" he couldn't help a blink.

"Mr. Malfoy?" the woman asked a moment later, straightening and throwing her hair back over her shoulder. "Do you need me to repeat the question?" Her eyes gleamed, and she had her hand poised above her parchment as though she wanted to write the next words herself, rather than have the quill repeat them.

"I respect Auror Potter, of course," Draco said, wondering where in the world this had come from, and why it mattered. Had someone spread rumors about him getting upset with Potter? But he could see Rosenthal frowning a little from the corner of his eye, and he knew that particular frown; it meant she was puzzled, too. If such rumors had appeared, she would have told him. "I remain grateful for what he did for me and my family at the trials. And he returned my wand. I'm also proud to own the wand that defeated Voldemort."

Half of them still swayed back like grass at the sound of that name. Draco had to lick his lips after saying it himself. But he was glad he had conquered his own fear, even if it taken a trip to Hogwarts and replaying of the battle in Pensieve memories to do it. Voldemort was dead. No use bringing him up, except when Draco could use his name for a political maneuver.

"I wondered," the woman said, her eyes all alight, "because of this letter I received." She took a parchment out of her pocket and cast a spell that fluttered it towards Draco.

Rosenthal was in the way to catch it, as if accidentally, but she passed it on quickly enough that Draco knew it didn't bear any curses. He fumbled a moment until it was in position and he could read it.

_I've taken over Hogwarts, and no one can stop me. If you try to close the school down, then you'll have to deal with my magic._

There was a little space, as though Potter hadn't been sure how he should sign this—what? declaration of intent to take over the wizarding world?—and then it was followed by the words, _Dark Lord Harry Potter._

Draco blinked. He thought lots of people were blinking. He wondered for a moment how he could not have known about this, since it would have been in all the papers and the reporter who had asked him questions couldn't have been the only one who received a letter, but then he remembered how closely-tucked up he and Rosenthal had been, planning. Rosenthal had probably seen it and saved it to tell him later, or thought it was a joke.

Draco looked up and smiled sadly into the flashing cameras.

"I'm sorry to see that Auror Potter may have become a Dark Lord," he said, and then added, because it was true and this situation was so strange that truth wouldn't hurt, "But _immensely _curious to see what he does next."

* * *

"Why the fuck did you call yourself _that_?"

Harry blinked at Hermione. It was only the second time or so in all the years he'd known her that he'd heard her swear. Then again, he reckoned no one could live with Ron for long without picking it up.

"Because that's what they're going to consider me," he said, watching her as she paced the Headmistress's office. Harry hadn't intended to take it over, but McGonagall had moved herself out into a different set of rooms, saying she no longer felt welcome as the school bonded more and more intensely to Harry. Harry didn't know what he was going to do about _that_, either. "A Dark Lord is a powerful wizard who tries to take over the world. That's the only name they have for it, so I might as well claim the title before anyone else can give it to me."

Hermione turned and stared wearily at him, pushing her hair back behind her ears. "You have _no idea _what I wouldn't give for some time alone with them," she muttered.

"With who?" Harry cast a Stabilizing Charm on the huge, tottering pile of parchment on his desk. It looked as though it would tilt and empty itself all over his floor at any moment, and he wanted to avoid that if possible. He hadn't anticipated how many owls would come back to him after his initial announcement to the reporters. He had thought most people would be too scared to write. But no, instead he got Howlers, and people begging him "not to turn his back on the Light," and more than a dozen with interview questions, and—probably the most disturbing—marriage proposals, more frequent than the requests with interviews.

People, Harry had come to realize as with a crack of mystical revelation, were bloody weird.

"With the people who convinced you that you had to sacrifice yourself." Hermione gave an irritable wave of her hand at the office. "With the Dursleys, and Dumbledore, and—oh, everyone else who did it, too."

Harry blinked at her again, and then smiled a little. "I appreciate you wanting to defend my honor," he said, and listened to the soft singing of the stones. So far, the school hadn't really done anything strange. Oh, it hummed when he spoke, but he could get used to that with more time. And some of the stones molded themselves to his feet, and the chairs to his arse, and the tassels on the curtains unwound and waved at him when he walked past. But it hadn't tried to hurt anyone. "But right now, I don't think I have any honor left."

Hermione whirled on him. "If you hadn't sent that _ridiculous _letter, you would!"

Harry leaned back in the chair that had been McGonagall's and studied her curiously. Hermione was breathing hard, her hands clenched in front of her as though she wanted to punch him.

_She probably does. _Harry hadn't made his friends' lives any easier with this little stunt of his.

"I see where you've gone wrong," Harry said quietly. "You assume I _care _about that, that I care about my reputation and the nonsense that the press is going to heap on me now that I've proclaimed myself a Dark Lord. But I don't care, Hermione. Really. I used to. What they said about me in the newspapers _infuriated _me. I wanted them to either believe me or hate me, and stop bouncing around between the two. Now I don't care."

Hermione looked at him with wide, tearless eyes. "But no one would have called you a Dark Lord if you didn't call _yourself _that."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Really? Think about it. You think that they wouldn't do it when they called me the Heir of Slytherin in my second year, based on _no _proof? And I think some people called me a Dark Lord then, too."

Hermione bit her lip and ruffled her hair. "I wish you had thought about this in more detail before you did it," she whispered.

Harry got up to give her a hug. Hogwarts molded stones to her feet, too, when he stepped away. It seemed the school could pick up on who he liked. Harry hoped that it wouldn't keep anyone else from coming in, though. There were some people he disliked personally who might still do good work at Hogwarts. "I know," he whispered back. "Sorry. But I made my decision that I was going to save Hogwarts, and I've got to move ahead with that, not let fear hold me back."

Hermione wiped her eyes. "What is your life going to be _like _now? I thought you just wanted a normal life and a family."

Harry hesitated. "I still want a family."

"And the normal life?" Hermione glared at him.

"Um," Harry said. "Well. I sort of realized after the war that I was never going to have a normal life."

"Realized? Or did someone tell you?" Hermione was leaning forwards as though she was going to lose her balance and topple over on him. "Did someone pressure you to do this? Was it the people who were saying that you should have saved everyone who died in the war?"

"No." Harry shook his head, and felt Hogwarts surging around him, as though an electric current was running through the stones. He paused, took a deep breath, and tried to settle down. He didn't want to bring the ceiling down on Hermione's head, either. "Not them. I just saw—I was bored before, but I didn't know what I could _do. _I had all this magic, but what good was it going to do? I really couldn't use it when I was an Auror because of all the _rules _you had to obey. Then I saw the story about the closing of Hogwarts, and I realized that was what I needed, something to tip me over the edge."

Hermione's eyes closed quickly, then opened again, and there was a teary sheen in the back of them. "Of sanity?"

Harry looked at her for a little, and then sighed. "No. I made this decision of my own free will, Hermione. I did some stupid things, like bonding with Hogwarts when I didn't realize what I was doing. I probably should have waited and considered some more. But it's done, and this is the life I want. I want to protect the school, and keep it open so that people can continue to find a home here." He leaned back in his chair and looked around at the walls, at the portraits of Headmasters and the paintings that McGonagall had added, which mostly seemed to be of lions and leopards. "I have awful memories of this room, but it's still _home _to me, in a way that no place else will ever be. Do you understand?"

Hermione closed her eyes and swallowed. "Yes," she whispered. "I do. I'm just afraid, Harry. Afraid of what it's going to cost you to keep this life."

Harry smiled at her. "I'm prepared to fight."

"And kill?" Hermione was shivering, her arms folded.

Harry held up a hand, and golden sparks of magic trailed his fingers, at the same time as something like a gong gave a deep, muffled boom from inside the wall. Hermione started, and blinked, and kept her eyes on him.

"I don't have to kill people," Harry said softly. "I can do other things instead. _That's _what this magic is good for."


	4. The Price of Silence

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four—The Price of Silence_

"Do you think he'll be your rival, sir?"

For a moment, Draco kept his eyes on the map in front of him that showed the areas of England less likely to vote for him, because Rosenthal would think it odd to see hope in his face. Then he turned around and shook his head. "Whatever Potter's goals in proclaiming himself a Dark Lord, they're not going to be mine. He doesn't just want political power, or he would have proclaimed himself Minister instead."

_If he has goals. If he himself knows what they are. _The dead silence that had come out of Hogwarts, where Potter was apparently based, in the last few days made Draco think that Potter had made this leap and then found himself on the edge of an abyss.

"But we don't know what might happen next." Rosenthal was rubbing her wrists against each other and pacing back and forth. "It would be easy to discount him and then suddenly find ourselves dealing with him as a threat."

"We never know what might happen next," Draco said. "We didn't know until other people started talking to us whether I would gather enough momentum to run, or whether I would have to wait a few more years to try for the Minister's position." He leaned back in his chair, studying her. "What _really _has you worried?"

Rosenthal closed her eyes, then opened them again. Her curly brown hair dangled into her eyes as she turned around and studied him. "If I'm really that transparent, I could cause you trouble when the campaign begins in earnest," she whispered.

"You're causing me trouble _now_," Draco told her impatiently. "Tell me what you have to say, and stop being so bloody evasive."

Rosenthal blinked at him, then seemed finally to realize that she could do him the most good by voicing her honest suspicions. She nodded and sat down in the chair across from him, pulling her hair back over her shoulders. Draco waited patiently until she had settled her hands in her lap and looked as if she would keep them there for a while, instead of flinging them around.

"I worry that someone might think you set this up," she began, staring at the floor. It was a pretty parquet floor, Draco thought, one of the best remaining in the Manor, but he _would _get impatient if she insisted on doing this for much longer. "Because you were a servant to the last Dark Lord, and this might seem like a great distraction from the rumors that Tilipop's agents are spreading about you in the press."

Draco snorted. "I know some people will think like that, because someone at the _Prophet _will, and there are too many fools out there who let the _Prophet _dictate their every thought," he said. "But I don't think it's a thought the majority of them will have. They might believe I'll serve Potter, or that I'm in league with him. I don't think most of them will decide that I'm the power behind him."

Rosenthal hesitated before she looked at him. "Why not?"

"That rivalry that I've told you about at Hogwarts, between Potter and me?" Draco asked. He had made a point of revealing the worst parts of his past to Rosenthal before he took her on to manage his publicity. She couldn't clip rumors short if she didn't know the shit they grew on. "It was worse than you might have thought. I told you about the arguing and the cursing, but before the end, Potter cursed me badly enough that I might have died. And I would have used an Unforgivable on him if he hadn't."

Rosenthal stared at him. Then she nodded. She wouldn't question him about why he hadn't told her all the details, Draco thought, because the answer was obvious. He smiled at her. He _had _made a good choice.

"Then you don't think he would respond to a request for an interview from me?" Rosenthal murmured. "That was the next thing I had thought of. He doesn't—he doesn't seem like a good candidate for a Dark Lord to me. Which means that I don't think he is, that he's only decided on the title for some strategic reason. But he won't talk to me when I'm so strongly associated with someone he hates."

"The last thing Potter ever was was _strategic_," Draco said, shaking his head. "He won, but he did it as much by luck as anything else."

"Then maybe…" Rosenthal said, and let her voice trail off.

Draco waited, his own hands folded in his lap. Whatever was going on behind Rosenthal's face, which looked like an honest struggle, she would have to make the decision for herself. Draco wasn't about to intervene and make it easy for her, or prejudice her.

Rosenthal finally sat up and said, "Maybe he would accept a visit from _you_."

Draco blinked. "If you think he would object to you calling on him, what makes you think that he would accept me?"

"I think he doesn't have any real sense of strategy," Rosenthal said, feeling her way through the intricacies of the situation in a way that reminded Draco of someone walking blindfolded through a crowded room and trying not to bump into anyone. But that was the way it worked for Rosenthal, he reminded himself. She had talents that he didn't. If he'd had them, he wouldn't have had to hire her. "I think he's chosen a title that he reckons might make people leave him alone for a time. If you could visit him, ask him what he's doing, get answers from him—maybe he would be foolish enough to _give _them to you. That's the impression I'm getting." She looked expectantly at Draco.

Draco had to nod, but also to add, "I won't do my campaign any good by going to visit him, not when people are going to think I encouraged him to this, or that I'm his servant, or whatever new conspiracy theory they've invented. I can't prevent them from inventing theories, but I can prevent my movements from giving them fodder."

Rosenthal gave him a tempered smile. "Of course. You would make the visit in secret, and ask him what he means to do. He might tell you. He might give you a sense, if he wants to conceal it, of his real plan, and the extent to which he would interfere in your run for Minister. We need some sense of this, and—I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy. I _can't _see another way forwards that would work," she added plaintively, as if that was her fault instead of Potter acting like an idiot. "Not with the limited amount of knowledge I have about him and the way he works. Not with this—no one could have predicted this, could they?"

Draco gave her the reassurance she was looking for, although honestly, he didn't know what was true. "No, I don't think anyone could have. The last I knew, Potter was an ordinary Auror, and content to remain so."

Rosenthal nodded, her eyes still shadowed. "Then perhaps you can make a visit. In secret first, and again in public if it goes well and you can show yourself to be a strong man who can deal with even the threat of a new Dark Lord calmly. I'll have to study the situation further before I can advise you on anything else."

Draco stood and held out his hand to her. Rosenthal blinked, as if she thought she hadn't merited the handshake, but then clasped and shook.

"Don't worry about it," Draco told her quietly. "You've done the best you could in really shocking circumstances."

Rosenthal bowed over his hand, and retreated from the meeting room to her private office, where Draco knew she thought best. Perhaps she would have a new piece of advice for him by tomorrow morning.

For right now, though, Draco rather liked this one. Visiting Potter in secret was daring, and mad, and fulfilled some of the impulses he had had during the conference with the reporters, the same impulses that had made him want to blurt out the sarcastic retorts he'd thought of.

He couldn't do that. Not right now. But he could do something that felt daring but not dangerous.

Later, he would wonder how he knew that, that Potter wasn't _dangerous _as a Dark Lord, not in the way the real Dark Lord had been. But he couldn't answer it, and he knew, then, only the thrumming in his blood and the smile on his face as he went to get ready.

* * *

"Someone is here to be seeing Master Lord Harry Potter Sir!"

Harry sighed and glanced up from the mess of paperwork on McGonagall's desk, mostly letters he was trying to answer. He had given up on correcting the house-elves the seventh time they called him by that title. Correcting them made them upset, and Harry had better things to do than listen to Hermione's lectures about that. "Who is it?"

The house-elf ducked his head and pulled a little at his ears. Harry bit his lip to avoid saying something that would upset the elf more. They seemed simultaneously happy that he was here to reopen Hogwarts, eager to serve him, and afraid of his magic.

"Master Draco Malfoy," the elf said at last, and wrung its hands as it watched him.

Harry gaped for a second. The last thing he'd heard, Malfoy was running for Minister. Which Harry thought was stupid, since there were so few people in the wizarding world who would actually elect him, but then, maybe that was what the wizarding world deserved for being so stupid.

He'd thought Malfoy wouldn't want to get involved, which was one reason Harry hadn't sent him an owl announcing that he was a Dark Lord now, the way he had to all the reporters he could think of and to Minister Tillipop and some of the other candidates. Malfoy was a coward. He wouldn't want to confront Harry.

But it seemed he was here, and maybe Harry had misjudged him the same way that so many people in the wizarding world had misjudged Harry.

"Show him in," he told the elf, and then spent a minute looking around the Headmistress's office after the elf disappeared. Should he change anything? Or move into a different room to meet Malfoy?

A second later, he straightened his back. What the fuck was he _doing, _thinking like that? Malfoy could take what he got, as far as Harry was concerned. He was the one who had made his bed, and now he'd have to lie in it. If he was afraid of Harry, he'd have to put up with the fear.

Harry sat down behind the desk, cast a spell that stabilized the stacks of paper again, and waited.

Malfoy opened the door a few minutes later. Harry wondered for a second if house-elves had guided him through the school or if he'd just assumed that of course Harry would be in McGonagall's office, and then dismissed the thought. It was unimportant.

"Hullo, Malfoy," Harry said, watching him.

Malfoy watched him right back. If he was uncomfortable with the way Harry stared, he didn't show it. Maybe he didn't have to, Harry conceded. Malfoy was tall and straight, and wore long green robes at the moment. He nodded back and moved over to take the chair opposite Harry's desk without saying anything.

"You don't seem much like a Dark Lord," Malfoy did open his mouth to utter, after pausing to smooth down his robes and rearrange his hands in his lap and in general act like a prissy arse. Harry narrowed his eyes. If Malfoy didn't like the way Harry did things, he was welcome to step right back out again.

"I'm new," Harry said coldly, and Malfoy blinked at him. "Anyway, why are you here? All the other candidates wrote, they didn't visit."

Malfoy studied him some more. Harry had no idea what he saw, really. Harry was still wearing his Auror robes, although he reckoned he wasn't entitled to them now. It was one thing to have Death Eaters serving among the Aurors, or so the Ministry had made clear in the last war, but Dark Lords? Not On.

Finally, Malfoy said, "You did this to protect Hogwarts."

Harry eyed him some more, but Malfoy liked silences, and Harry didn't, so it was up to him to break them. It felt like letting Malfoy win, but Harry at least spoke sternly enough to make spit leap from his mouth, and Malfoy draw his robes back. That was enough of a victory to be going on with. "That's what I said in my letter. I don't know why everyone who sends me letters in return seems to doubt it."

"Perhaps they simply want to be absolutely _sure_ you mean it." Malfoy linked his hands together over his knees and gave Harry the kind of empty smile that he seemed to be wearing in all the photographs Harry saw of him in the papers nowadays. "After all, Dark Lords usually want to take over the world, not protect a single place."

Harry snorted. "I wouldn't know what to do with the world if I had it. For right now, it's Hogwarts. Children should have the right to learn."

"How?"

Harry frowned at Malfoy. "Sorry?"

"How shall they learn? _What _shall they learn?" Malfoy edged forwards on the seat of his chair, although Harry didn't know why. It wasn't like Harry had suddenly retreated and Malfoy needed the extra closeness to hear him better. "You want the classes to be the same that they were when we were here?"

"And what was wrong with that?" Harry snapped. "I learned a lot, and I was happier than I was anywhere else. This was my _home_."

Malfoy gave him a look that Harry thought was simply unimpressed at first, but then he realized there was something deeper behind it. Before he could read too much into it, however, it vanished, and Malfoy was shaking his head. "You know as well as I do that there were problems. Are you going to let the gamekeeper teach the Magical Creatures class again? You _did _hear about that little girl who was injured by his Blast-Ended Skrewts last year?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably. Hagrid hadn't been found culpable in that case because he was rescuing another child from a tree he'd climbed and then couldn't get down from, and the little girl had been part of a group of kids that decided to start poking the Skrewts. But her burns had still been horrible. "Well, I don't know."

"And the Divination class?" Malfoy went on sweetly. "Of no practical use _whatsoever_. Not to mention the mess that Defense Against the Dark Arts always was."

"The curse on the position has been broken," Harry snapped. "Professor Highroad, the one McGonagall hired a few years after the war, has been doing a perfectly adequate job."

Malfoy smiled, and let the silence linger again.

This time, Harry made sure that a big glob of spit came out and landed on the corner of Malfoy's robes when he spoke. "Fine, then, explain what the fuck you mean."

"That would be the Professor Highroad who thinks she should repeat the same spells every year?" Malfoy asked. "The one who thinks that the students saying they don't remember something isn't simply their brains rotting over the holidays, as always happens, but a sign that she didn't teach them well last time? The last thing I knew, seventh-year students preparing for their NEWTS were drilling on charms that first-years are supposed to know, because a moment of hesitation in casting them was proof that they had 'forgotten' them."

"She's doing the best she can," Harry said, but he felt as if he was floundering. Yes, there had been stories the last few years about extremely poor NEWT and OWL scores in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Harry had had the impression that was usual, and partially a result of the school still having students who had trained under the unimpressive professors in that post. Maybe it wasn't.

"You'll have to make some changes," Malfoy said. Now he craned his neck until Harry thought he really would fall off the end of his chair. "There's no way around it. You want to protect and preserve Hogwarts exactly as she was, but everything changes."

The stones under Malfoy's chair were shifting, and even the chair itself looked ready to dump him. Harry shook his head, reminding himself that Hogwarts was responsive to his moods, and he couldn't simply lose his temper. That might result in Hogwarts murdering Malfoy. Harry wouldn't be responsible for that. "Maybe I can't make up my mind to the best results, but I can ensure that people like the Headmistress, who actually _know _what students should learn, get to make up their minds in peace."

"She's moved out of this office," Malfoy said, and clasped his hands in front of him again. "Who really rules here?"

"No one asked you for your observations," Harry snapped. "No one asked you to come here."

"No, that's quite true," Malfoy agreed placidly. "I showed up on my own and walked in. But you let me in, and you need help, Potter. That letter you sent claimed a lot more ambition than you meant it to, or that's the way most people will interpret it. They'll think you have a _plan _of some sort. That you actually know what you're doing." He paused and stared critically at Harry. "And you don't, do you?"

Harry gripped the desk. "I want to protect Hogwarts. I'm going to do that."

Malfoy half-ducked his head. "But you need people who can advise you, people who aren't afraid of you, the way the Headmistress is." Harry would have demanded to know how he _knew _that, but the way Malfoy's eyes flicked around the office at some of the empty shelves announced it. "I propose an alliance. I advise you and keep you from screwing this up, and you help get a friendly Minister into office."

And Harry, gaping at him a little, realized that he had been wrong to think that Malfoy was a coward.


	5. Meditating Offers

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_Chapter Five—Meditating Offers_

Harry buried his head in his hands. He wanted to speak, but he couldn't trust which words would come out of his mouth. The _sane _thing to do would be to reject Malfoy's offer, after all. None of his friends would be happy about it, and his friends were the only ones supporting him right now. And of course Malfoy was probably a sneaky, untrustworthy, Slytherin bastard, just like always.

_But he's offering to help me, and if he did that, then Ron and Hermione wouldn't be the only ones who believe in me anymore._

Harry had to look up and shake his head, though. He just couldn't _trust _Malfoy. He thought Malfoy might stand behind him until something better came along, but what happened when the something better did? Harry would find himself without the "support" he'd been counting on in less time than it would take Malfoy to recite his ancestors.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't think it would work out."

Malfoy then violated all the secret tenets of Slytherin behavior that Harry assumed they sat around their common room making up. He brushed a bit of dust from his robes and sniffed, but he didn't get up and storm out of the room, promising that Harry would rue the day when he rejected him. He stared at Harry for long seconds before he spoke, too, to the point that Harry was considering breaking the silence again just so it wouldn't linger anymore.

"You make a habit of throwing my gifts back in my face," he said. "I'm getting tired of it."

Harry stared at him. "What _gift _have you ever given me? Aside from this. And you're running for Minister, Malfoy. No offense, but the Ministers are all corrupt one way or the other. If you helped me, it would be for personal gain, and temporary."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "That would be rather stupid, wouldn't it? You have so much power that anyone betraying you could suffer a nasty death. And I'm referring to my friendship, in first year."

"I might as well tell you this," Harry said, deciding to ignore the "friendship" part. If Malfoy wanted to revisit ancient history, he could go and stare into a mirror. Harry was only interested in modern history. "I'm going to tell everyone else this. I don't intend to kill anyone."

Malfoy blinked. Then he said, "You would have to, if someone came after you with the intent of taking the Dark Lord down, which of course they'll do the instant people start taking you seriously."

Harry stood up. "Maybe a demonstration is in order?" he asked. "You can consider this _my _gift to _you_. It's the most useful kind of gift, the kind that stops you making stupid mistakes later." _And much more useful than that dictionary Hermione tried to give to me. _

Malfoy opened his mouth, but Harry had already begun to concentrate. The chair Malfoy sat in floated off the floor and up towards the ceiling. When it got there, it turned sideways, so that Malfoy was tilted between the ceiling and the wall. He would be safe, as long as he hung onto the chair, but he could slip in a second if he shifted position too much.

"How extraordinary," Malfoy said a minute later, during which Harry watched him trying to pick his hands up from the chair cushion and his hands didn't cooperate. "My hands don't appear to want to come undone."

Harry leaned back against the desk and smiled at him. "No, they don't. That's partially Hogwarts, and partially me. Wouldn't want you to fall, now."

"Hogwarts," Malfoy said, and peered down at him with wide eyes. Despite their wideness, Harry frowned. Malfoy seemed to have forgotten he was several feet in the air.

"Yes," Harry said. "I bonded with Hogwarts, and now it has the will to defend itself and defend me. So anything you try against me is going to fail." He paused, and waited, and when Malfoy said nothing again, added, "You can proceed to gape at me and my genius at any time."

* * *

_So he does have a glimmering of native wit to go along with the power. I was getting worried._

Draco leaned back in his chair, in the awkward position that his body and his stuck hands were going to maintain for him whether or not he wanted them to, and took stock. At the moment, he was suspended above the ground in a chair that wouldn't move even though he wanted it to, and the man he'd come to propose an alliance with was a crazy Dark Lord who might or might not let him fall.

Except…

_I don't intend to kill anyone._

Draco had assumed that was a lie the moment the chair flew upwards. But now that he thought about it, and about the position the chair rested in, he had to admit it seemed to be true. Potter could have done any number of things to him. Instead, he'd lifted Draco in the air and made sure he was safe. An incredible demonstration of power without a wand, even if he was speaking the truth about being bonded to Hogwarts, but not painful. Not harmful. Simply designed to impress someone and make them back away, a gibbering wreck.

Fortunately for Potter, Draco wasn't one of those people who could be so easily impressed. He kicked back in the chair instead and smiled at Potter, who blinked at him as though he had honestly never thought someone could do that.

"So I know what you are now," Draco said conversationally. "You've convinced me you're powerful, and you could be scary. But you won't scare anyone as long as you just put them in chairs and herd them into the walls. You could do that with a few wizards who don't suspect you, sure. But what could you do with an army?"

He leaned out as far as he could without straining his arms and looked Potter in the eye. "That's why you need me. Someone who knows what to do, to make sure the armies never march on Hogwarts."

Potter stared at him for a few seconds, and then spun his fingers. The chair that held Draco detached itself from the wall and plummeted towards the floor. Draco reminded himself of how small the distance was, and managed to lounge back on the chair and look as though he was enjoying a ride on a flying carpet.

Or so he flattered himself, anyway. From the way Potter stared at him _now, _he might have worn any number of strange expressions, or been doing any number of odd things.

"I don't understand," Potter said. "I thought you were a coward. Why would you not be afraid of what I can do to you?" He sounded—deep, Draco thought, listening to him. Not philosophically, but as though there was something attached to his voice in the back of his throat, half-choking the words as they emerged.

Then the sense of his words, rather than the sound of them, caught up with Draco's brain. Draco sat up, and couldn't prevent himself from baring his teeth, as ridiculous as that probably looked. "I am not a coward," he said.

"I remember the way you were afraid of Voldemort," Potter said. He didn't sound as though he was particularly accusatory. "How afraid you were during the war. You didn't seem brave to me."

Draco shook his head violently. "You haven't paid enough attention to me since then, Potter," he began.

"Well, no," Potter said, and his eyebrows went further up. "Didn't think we would ever cross paths again, did I? Didn't have reason. You probably wouldn't have cared about anything I did ever again, except that I took over Hogwarts and proclaimed myself Dark Lord, and that means that you _have _to care."

Draco folded his arms, glad that his hands released the chair cushion on command. "I'm not a coward," he said, and rose from his chair without unfolding his arms. Potter looked mildly impressed. That wouldn't be enough for Draco, though, not now. He thought he knew another reason that Potter was showing himself so reluctant to ally with him. If he thought Draco was a coward, then he might also think he would break and run at any second.

That _wasn't going to happen. _Draco would make sure of it. He would _show _Potter. He would _make_ him accept him. This was no longer solely a practical alliance. It had become a means of recuperating his lost pride.

_Why do so many of my worst memories revolve around Potter? _

Well, that one was easy enough to answer, honestly, Draco thought, taking a moment to shake his head at himself instead of at Potter. Because Potter was prominent and powerful in the wizarding world, and other people who also wanted to matter to it would have to deal with him at least once. It would be like asking why so many people had bad memories involving Dumbledore or Minister Fudge. They were there, they had to be dealt with.

But at least Draco could be fairly sure that his bad memories focused on Potter were unique.

"I am no longer a coward," Draco said, and his voice was strong enough to make Potter pay attention to him, at least, which was something. "I am no longer someone you can't depend on. I don't want you _disregarding _me, Potter. When I offer you an alliance, it's sincerely meant, and I can do things for you as well as having you protect me."

Potter just raised his eyebrows higher. "But I haven't heard yet what you can do for me. There's been a lot of hints and insinuations and gestures in the distant direction of what might be a plan, but you haven't told me outright."

_A little more wit. And he's right. _Draco marked up a moment's chagrin against himself. He hated the way Potter was so direct and Gryffindor and only valued qualities that were traditionally Gryffindor, but on the other hand, he _knew _Potter was like that, and he had still tried to treat him as if he were a Slytherin.

"Fine," Draco said. "I can recommend good professors for you to hire, people who are practical and know their subjects, but who would never think of applying to teach at Hogwarts, because they know the tradition of the Headmistress and the Headmaster hiring colleagues who reflect their values."

"If you're telling me that I should hire an expert in Dark Arts to teach Defense—"

"Why not?" Draco snapped. "As long as they were good at the _Defense _part, too. I don't see anything wrong with having experts do the things they're good at, things that the students need to know."

"Because they might curse students, too?" Potter snapped back. "And all these people you know who are experts and are sitting around doing nothing…they wouldn't happen to be pure-bloods, would they? I want a Hogwarts like the one I grew up in, like the one Dumbledore had, where Muggleborns were actually _welcome. _I'm not going to hire someone to teach who automatically flinches when half their students walk into the classroom. The welfare of the students matters more to me than an adult's prejudices."

_Time to be blunter still, _Draco thought. He took a deep breath, thought of what Rosenthal would say if she could see him now, and almost snickered. It was fun, in a way, indulging his tongue with all the sorts of things he couldn't say in front of press conferences and reporters.

"You're never going to get a Hogwarts like the one Dumbledore had," he told Potter. "You've taken over the school and declared yourself Dark Lord. That creates a certain kind of atmosphere, and even if you took over the title of Headmaster, people aren't going to forget it. This is _different_, now. In saving Hogwarts, you'll change it. You have no choice. Time goes on, and the world turns, Potter. Believe me, I know. I couldn't even consider running for Minister if that wasn't true."

Potter stared hard at him, and seemed to champ his jaws a few times, although Draco didn't know if that was the truth or just his own stereotypes about Gryffindors coming into play. Then he lowered his head and said, "You never should have run for Minister at all."

Draco drew his robes close to him. It was the only gesture of defiance he could make, in the face of Potter's magic, but he was still going to make it. "You know what? I came here in good faith, to offer you help that you're not going to find elsewhere and honesty that you're not going to get from your friends because they have all the same problems that you do. But if you're going to throw it into my face, then I might as well back away from you, because you won't give a shit about anything I say anyway."

Potter let him walk to the office door before he cleared his throat. Draco stopped with his hand on the door handle. "What?" he snapped, without looking over his shoulder. "If you're going to deny it, I won't listen."

"I'm sorry."

Draco closed his eyes before he turned around. Rosenthal would scold him for the depth of his reaction, but she wasn't here. And this was something he would keep in his head, and not say aloud, because it would sound stupid to anyone who wasn't him.

"What for?" Draco asked. "If it's everything, then you have to spend a lot of time rethinking it. If it's just for saying that one stupid thing, then you'll probably say something as stupid and thoughtless in the future."

* * *

_I didn't ask you to come here, you idiot. Why would you think I'd be _happy _that you plan to march in and change everything?_

But Harry didn't say it. He had to think about it, and he had to admit that running for Minister, if nothing else, showed that Malfoy wasn't a coward. He had to know he would face hatred. Yet he was out there anyway, doing what he thought was the right thing to do. He was more than likely wrong, but he had still done it.

While Harry had sat around whining about how no one was doing anything to change the wizarding world and his magic was good for nothing until he saw the newspaper article about Hogwarts.

He nodded a little, eyes on Malfoy. "Sorry for what I said to you. Sorry for not realizing I would have to change Hogwarts to save it." It was true that that revelation still stung the inside of his mouth like tart oranges, but the more he thought about it, the truer it was. He wasn't Dumbledore, so he couldn't run the school the way Dumbledore would have run it.

And not everything Dumbledore had done made him a saint, either. Harry would never want to sacrifice a student the way Dumbledore had been ready to sacrifice him.

"But not for anything else?" Malfoy folded his arms.

"I don't know what else I have to be sorry for," Harry said. "I won't apologize for taking over Hogwarts and declaring myself a Dark Lord. It's done now, so it's stupid to ramble on and on about it."

"The way Granger did?" Malfoy's face was shrewd.

Harry sneered at him. "No, actually. She wasn't happy, but she did try to understand, and she knows that she can't take all those letters I sent back. She yelled at me, but she calmed down."

"You could have tried apologizing to me for thinking I was a coward."

"I thought I had, when I apologized for insulting you."

"But you _thought _it," Malfoy said, and picked at the sleeve of his robe, although Harry didn't know how it could have picked up dust. The house-elves kept his office spotless.

"Fuck if I'm apologizing for my thoughts," Harry said. "The things I do and say, yeah, but I spent too much time being ashamed of myself for my thoughts. I'll just think them and then sometimes do and say different things."

Malfoy stood so still for a second that Harry thought he would change his mind and leave again. But it seemed he had only been thinking, because after a few seconds he nodded and said, "All right. Then are you consenting to the alliance?"

"You think you can find me people who will make good professors," Harry said. "What else?"

Malfoy smiled. "You don't demand much, do you?"

"You're wrong," Harry said, forcefully enough that he startled himself. "I'm going to demand a _lot_. I'm also tired of asking for a little and not getting even that. People won't leave me alone or believe that we should change the wizarding world not to be so prejudiced against magical creatures. So I might as well shout as whisper."

Malfoy gave him a long, slow, wondering smile that Harry had to admit he wouldn't mind seeing more often. "Very good. Then I can offer you people who would make good professors, people who can advise you on publicity, people who can give you some help with your post." He looked at the tottering piles of paper on Harry's desk and sniffed. "You need it."

"What do you think I can give you?" Harry asked quietly. "I think my approval would do you more harm than good."

"Maybe," Malfoy said, looking at him. "But I was thinking the other day that it's become boring. No one to question and challenge me, no one to offer me a contrast. You do that. You send me messages about what's going on, and let me know what some of the people who wouldn't speak their minds to me are thinking. And you don't show that you approve of me, but that you disapprove of Minister Tillipop. He's the only one who has a chance against me."

Harry had to smile as he thought of the meeting with the Board of Governors he had set up tomorrow, which the Minister was supposed to attend. "I think," he said happily, "that will not be a problem."

"Then it's an alliance?" Malfoy had gone back to watching him with narrowed eyes.

"It is," Harry said, and put out his hand. He understood why Malfoy stared at it like a dead fish, but what really mattered was that they shook, and that was enough for him.


	6. Meeting the Board of Governors

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_Chapter Six-Meeting the Board of Governors_

"You're back earlier than I expected you to be, sir."

Draco smiled a little at Rosenthal as he laid his cloak on the table beside him, and then shook his head, reminded himself of cleanliness, and hung it up on the peg instead. He knew that Rosenthal would reckon something was wrong. She had already started to stare at him, had half-risen to her feet as though she knew he would require her. But he couldn't be arsed to care about it.

"Potter was more receptive to the idea of an alliance than I had ever known he would be," was all Draco said, and sat down at the desk he had abandoned that morning. A glance at the maps made the relevant names seem to sparkle and glow. Even his post looked less overwhelming than it had, the reports people had sent him on Tillipop's latest nonsense interesting instead of grinding. "I think we can count on him to keep his promises as long as I keep mine."

"What kind of promises did you make him, sir?" Rosenthal's voice had grown sharp enough to pierce Draco's skin.

Draco didn't let himself be pierced, this time. He lounged back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head in a sloppy way that left his wrists dangling. He had to laugh in spite of himself when Rosenthal's eyes almost bulged out.

"That we would be faithful allies," Draco said. "And to find him some people who can advise him on regulating his post, and take over some of the teaching posts at Hogwarts." He watched for an entertained moment as Rosenthal's eyes attained the state of bulging this time, and then added, "You can find other people fit to advise a powerful wizard with a temper, can't you? After all, you produced yourself for me."

Rosenthal closed her eyes. Her cheeks had gone pale, but with a heroic effort, she maintained color in her chin and around her eyes. "Sir," she said faintly. "You know how busy you are. You shouldn't be taking on extra responsibilities."

"I'm not," Draco reminded her. "I'm handing them over to you. Get going. They'll ideally need people for all the positions, but I suppose Potter will feel compelled to let McGonagall remain as Transfiguration teacher if she wants to. So put that one at the bottom of your list. Defense Against the Dark Arts is first priority, and then all the others can follow in roughly equal order."

Rosenthal made a despairing little noise and fled the room. Draco smiled. He knew that either she would recover in a distant corridor with the help of a house-elf and a little brandy, or she would fling herself into the work right away as a means of avoiding the crushing feeling. Draco thoroughly approved of either choice, since he himself was about to pursue the second.

_She'll get used to it, _Draco thought complacently as he went back to studying the post. _And so will I. Potter noticing me won't always make me feel like a teenage boy who's just drunk his first champagne._

While it lasted, though, Draco bloody well intended to enjoy it.

* * *

Harry stepped into the dark, wood-paneled room at the back of the school, a room he had never suspected was there, chosen by the Board of Governors for their confrontation. He wondered if they had thought the solemn, ancient furniture and the portraits of past Governors on the walls would intimidate him.

But Harry would have been just as happy meeting anywhere, including the Ministry or the Headmistress's office. He shook his head as he walked down the center of the room, past an aisle of unoccupied chairs, to the round table with the Governors already seated around it. They had a thing or two to learn about intimidation. Even Voldemort had only scared Harry as badly as he had because he had killed Harry's parents and might have killed his friends. The Governors weren't going to do that, so they were already coming in second best.

And when he compared them to some of the Auror trainers who had tried to turn him into a model citizen, and McGonagall when he was a kid, and even Uncle Vernon when he was in a really bad mood...

No, there was just no comparison.

He took the chair left over for him, an arching, slanting oak thing with a flat brown cushion that seemed to support his buttocks and nothing else, and looked from face to face. He knew some of them from Ministry functions and attendance at his speeches on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Others, he knew from the faces of their relatives he had trained under or arrested. And the last few, he had no idea.

It didn't matter. He had made his decision, and people could persuade him, but nothing could change his initial determination to protect Hogwarts. And Harry suspected they had come here to try.

_Poor bastards. _

He wondered if he should tell them to forget about it and go home, but he suspected they wouldn't believe him without a demonstration, either of his magic or his stubbornness. So he folded his hands quietly in his lap and waited.

"You may be wondering why we called you here," Ralph Grierson began. He was one of the Governors Harry knew from Ministry functions, a tall, heavy-faced man with a wavy mass of straw-gold hair that looked like a lion's mane.

"No," Harry said.

Grierson stared at him; then his jaw set. "Explain," he said.

"You called me here to discuss the changes that I plan to make in Hogwarts," Harry said. "Such as making sure it stays open and the children can continue their education under a system that remains at least a little independent of the Ministry. You want me to stop those changes. They aren't going to stop. I don't know what else there is to wonder about."

Grierson made an incoherent gesture off to the side and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, as though to convey that he was done with Harry and anyone else who liked could have him. The woman to his right took up the challenge. She was someone Harry didn't know, although he thought he saw a slight family resemblance to the Blacks in her dark eyes and the heavy grey hair, carefully braided, that hung down her back. "You do understand that the children were learning almost nothing when the school was under Headmistress McGonagall's sway?" she asked.

"It depends on what you mean by nothing," Harry said. "I know that not everyone could cast the spells perfectly. Who could remember them all? But we had some independent and tough-minded Auror trainees coming into the program, I know that. And the Healers had some of their best Potions students once Professor Slughorn adopted Professor Snape's ideas but taught them in his own manner. I don't know about all the other professions. Those, I do."

The woman frowned at him and shook her head. "They had no sense of history. You _are _aware that no one could keep awake through History of Magic?"

"Of course I am," Harry said. "You probably had Binns, too." The woman flushed. "But no one ever saw fit to do something about it until now. Why didn't you start talking about replacing teachers and looking into the courses first? But no, instead you just shut the entire school down, and everything I can find in the papers and those letters to me talks about how the children need to learn respect and obedience. Not history."

"They need to learn the history of the Ministry, and all it's done for them," interrupted a man whose beard and hair almost hid his face, far down the table. "That's the important thing."

"What kinds of things has it done for them?" Harry asked in interest. "Cooperated in sentencing Muggleborns for being Muggleborn during the war? Sent a teacher to become High Inquisitor and spread Ministry propaganda when the war was just beginning? Denied Voldemort's return? Been-"

"Even _you,_" the woman said, with a noise far back in her throat as though she was choking on bones, "cannot _seriously _suggest that there is no room for improvement, or that you learned everything you needed to."

"No one could have taught me what I needed," said Harry, with a hidden wince at the thought of Dumbledore. "No one learns how to fight a war when they're eleven, no matter how good a school they're at, or how to stab a basilisk when they're twelve. That's exactly the kind of thing I _don't _want people to have to learn at Hogwarts. I want them to be able to be kids for a little while, before the whole weight of adult responsibility falls upon them. We should teach them how to cope with that, but also how to make the transition slowly."

"And that is what we want to teach them," Grierson insisted.

"Then tell me how," Harry said, and made a gracious little gesture so no one at the table would think he was only talking to Grierson. "Please, tell me how you're going to teach the students of Hogwarts to be responsible and make the transition to adults. I think you must have a really good idea in mind, because you wouldn't have closed the school otherwise."

No one said anything for a few moments. Harry smiled. He knew that wasn't because they didn't _have _answers.

"You know," Grierson muttered abruptly, "we've been doing too much of the talking. I think we should ask you how _you_ mean to provide an education to the children of Hogwarts that they haven't received so far."

Harry shrugged a little. "Of course. It's only fair." Their glances darted across the table, sharp and suspicious, again, a system that would have worked better if Harry wasn't sitting right in the same room with them. "I mean to work closely with a pure-blood ally of mine to hire a few professors who are experts in their fields but don't usually teach their practical knowledge. Many of the professors I had when I was a kid, I really enjoyed, but not all of them are still here. Or they might be teaching with outdated methods. Modern methods are needed."

_Thank you, Malfoy. I wouldn't have had that answer ready without you._

The grey-haired woman interrupted, "That is hardly a complete plan."

"It's more than you've given me so far," Harry said. He could be loud, he thought, unpleasant and demanding, in the same way she was. "I did ask you for details, but you didn't want to hand them over. And you didn't let me finish, either. Do you want me to keep going?"

"There's no need for that." The woman's hands closed on the edge of the table as if she would have been happy to flip it over and put a stop to the whole proceeding right there. "We already know what you want."

"Then tell me," Harry said. "I'm always interested in the perceptions of the public."

A few Governors moistened their lips and edged their chairs away from the woman. She didn't seem to notice. Not reckless, Harry thought, but confident in her power. He surprised and pleased himself. He couldn't have noticed that a few weeks ago.

"Can I have your name?" he added, before she could really leap into the conversation. "I always feel so awkward discussing the futures of children with people whose names I don't know."

The woman's eyes glinted. "Ella Rosier," she said quietly. "As you would have known if you'd decided to pay attention to the news and politics before now, in the way that a future leader of the wizarding world really _should_."

"Oh, I leave that up to the people who want to lead the wizarding world instead of keep Hogwarts safe," Harry said easily. "Not that Minister Tillipop is any good at it, but someone somewhere is, so I just assume they're doing their job." He reckoned that could count as the beginning of his putting in a good word for Malfoy's campaign.

Rosier spared him a single glance of arrow-pointed contempt. Then she said, "You want to turn Hogwarts into a sanctuary for your precious Gryffindors. You want to repeat Dumbledore's errors."

"No," Harry said, and felt his voice grow harsher. For a moment, the table trembled under the Board of Governors, and they pushed their chairs back and stared uneasily at it. Harry imagined flipping them into the air the way he had with Malfoy, and then shook his head to get rid of that idea. Hogwarts would do it, but he needed them to listen to him right now, not start exclaiming and getting upset about him being bonded with Hogwarts. "Do you have any idea what Dumbledore did to me? I'm not saying that he could do anything else, but he was willing to sacrifice my life to end the war. I'm _not _going to do what he did. He was a mentor and a friend to me, but he was no kind of hero."

Rosier tapped her fingers on the edge of the table, once, twice. Hogwarts rang in Harry's head with his own irritation. "I was under the impression that 'hero' was also a title that you refused for yourself."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Because I'm not all-kind or all-good. But I don't think someone who isn't those things has any right to claim it, either. People insist on calling me one. That means I've thought a lot about the nature of heroism. But we were talking about Hogwarts. No, I don't want to run it exactly the way Dumbledore did. That's why I'm talking about new professors instead of leaving them the same. Can't you come up with _some _better explanation for your dislike of me?"

Rosier turned as pink as her namesake all the way up to her hairline. "Very well," she spat. "And what about your well-known prejudice against Slytherins? Can you keep yourself _neutral _when it comes to providing an education for them?"

"Yes," Harry said. "Because I don't intend to just run around assigning points and giving out detentions. I'm not the Headmaster. I'll only intervene if a professor is mistreating students or if there's bullying going on so bad that students are terrified to go to class. I would make sure that Gryffindors and the other Houses couldn't mistreat Slytherins. And I'll make sure that Slytherins can't mistreat Muggleborns, either," he added, because Rosier had started to smile and he found the smile ugly enough to want to make her stop. "Something that wouldn't happen under a Ministry regime."

"You accuse our neutrality?" asked someone who hadn't spoken so far, a shabby little witch in a grey cloak and hat.

"Yes," Harry said. "I know what you've been saying, what you've been doing. When Dumbledore was here, your main interest was in getting rid of him, not running the school. And now your main interest is in closing the school so that the Ministry can decide what gets taught. I know a lot of you are Slytherins, and Minister Tillipop was one, too. What would happen if you _just decided because it was best _not to admit Muggleborns anymore? Or if you hired professors who hated them?"

"Muggleborns must be brought into our world," said the little witch. "Forced to adapt."

"You know who has some fucking trouble _adapting_?" Harry snapped, and ignored the gasps at his language. That only proved they hadn't been paying attention to the important things. "The pure-blood children who grow up locked away in their precious family homes and never even go to primary school. They're just taught by their parents and sometimes private tutors for years on end. Then you bring them to Hogwarts and expect them to get along with other students and share their toys and their teachers' attention? It's not a surprise that we have so many problems with prejudice! The biggest problem to me is that no one is doing anything about _that_!"

"So you admit our children need attention?" Grierson leaned forwards.

"All the children need attention," Harry said, and stood up. The table shook for a second, until he laid a soothing hand on it. He could feel the spirit of Hogwarts rippling in the wood on the walls, making knotholes into spaces through which weapons could reach, grains in the wood into potential strangling ropes. For now, he restrained it. "But not prejudice, not being shoved out or closed out or told they're not good enough. Not taken away from their families and locked up in the wizarding world the way so many of you are proposing doing. If you did it with Muggleborns, you should do it with pure-bloods too."

"The Muggleborns have more to learn-"

"And the pure-bloods have a lot to learn about Muggleborns, and Muggles, and magic with a wand, and getting along with other people, and magical creatures," Harry said. "Listen, you can fight this battle with me all day long, but I _don't care_. Hogwarts is mine now. I'm going to make it to the center of my Court." He grimaced a little as he said the word, but he'd been reading endless literature about Dark Lords as part of his research and training in the past few years, and apparently most Dark Lords had one. Voldemort had actually been unusual in that he didn't have a permanent fortress or base of operations. "This is the way things are going to go."

"Why meet with us, if you intended all along to ignore our opinions and do what you like?" The moustache of the shaggy wizard who sat at the end of the table was bristling out.

"Because I thought you deserved to hear about what I was going to do," Harry said. "I see I was mistaken." He bowed a little to them and turned away, walking towards the door.

Grierson cast a spell that locked it. Harry paused, shrugged, and lifted his hand, at the same time asking Hogwarts for a little bit of power.

The door burst open hard enough to make the lock sag against the wall. Harry turned, raised his eyebrows at the stunned Grierson, and nodded a little. "That's what I mean when I say Hogwarts is mine," he said. "Good-bye."

The walls moved in a little closer to the table, at the same time as the chairs pulled back and the floor rippled, propelling the Governors to their feet. They gaped at Harry. Harry motioned to the far door, and the room turned them around and began to jog them out. Harry didn't care to watch the dirty details, so he exited, shaking his head.

He had thought maybe he could make a few of them see reason. He had thought the ones who had some Muggle grandparents might see that it was silly, talking about imposing special requirements on Muggleborn students or taking them away from their families, and that _all _of them might see the Ministry couldn't control Hogwarts, or the content of the students' classes would change every time a new Minister came into power. But no, they hadn't, and he was done dealing with them.

He had plenty of other things to do.

He walked back into the Headmistress's office and shut the door behind him. He still thought of it as the Headmistress's office, he realized with some distant surprise. He reckoned that would have to change eventually.

But not right now.

He sat down at the desk and began to work through the post, like a good little Dark Lord.


	7. An Unexpected Visitor

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven—An Unexpected Visitor_

Draco opened the newspaper and stared at the front page for a moment. Then he laughed, hard enough to bring one of his house-elves popping into the breakfast room, where it stared at him.

"Master Draco is needing some water?" the elf asked in a piping voice, its ears standing almost straight up.

Draco waved it away, his hand wrapped around his mouth as he studied the page. The picture was of the Board of Governors crowded in front of Hogwarts's gates, their noses pointing straight up into the air. They were trying to look regal and in control, but that was hard when tendrils of iron on the gates kept uncoiling and poking them in the arses, trying to make them move further away.

The article was less informative than that picture. Draco skimmed it, but it was too obviously from the Board's point of view, proclaiming that they had tried to give Harry Potter an ultimatum and he had been unreasonable. The way Draco saw it, they had indeed offered that ultimatum and been marched out.

_The idea that Potter's bonded with Hogwarts never occurred to them._

Well, Draco had to admit it hadn't occurred to him, either, until Potter offered the information. But why let a perfectly good triumph over his enemies be ruined with that little bit of extra information?

He put the article aside to show Rosenthal later, and then leaned back and stared at the ceiling, working out ways that he could put this story into the speech he would give later that day. The speech had to go a certain way, of course, hinting delicately at the rumors about Minister Tillipop that Draco had planted and scheduled to appear in a few days' time. But there was no reason he couldn't bring up the new Dark Lord, too, and comment equally delicately about the _exemplary _way he seemed to be handling his school.

Draco laughed aloud, this time from the sheer pleasure of thinking about Potter showing the Governors the door, and popped to his feet. If nothing else, he had Potter to thank for giving him this feeling of sunshine in the world.

* * *

"Master Harry Potter Dark Lord Sir! There is being someone here to see you!"

Harry glanced up. Oddly enough, his first thought was that Malfoy might have come back, and he smiled. Then he wondered at the smile, and shook his head to focus on the house-elf in front of him. "Well, who is it?"

"He says his name is being Bradley Williams, Master Harry Potter Dark Lord Sir." The house-elf had stopped wringing its hands, probably because Harry hadn't punished it, and regarded him anxiously. "He is threatening not to go away."

Harry shrugged. He recognized the name Bradley Williams as that of a Gryffindor who had been a few years behind him, and an eager part of Dumbledore's Army during the Battle of Hogwarts. Perhaps he had become a reporter and wanted to interview Harry. Either way, Harry doubted he was dangerous to Harry right in the middle of his own Court. "Show him up to the office, then."

The elf bobbed its head again and vanished. Harry leaned back in his chair and stretched. He was tired of writing letters and trying to come up with multiple convincing ways to explain why he had called himself a Dark Lord. Sooner or later people were just going to have to get used to reality, and understand that he had chosen the title because he wanted to.

_It's strange how they spent so many years expecting me to act mad and spoiled and Dark, but none of them believe it when I declare that I _am _that way._

Williams came up the moving staircase a few minutes later. He stood in the doorway instead of coming closer and stared at Harry. Harry arched his eyebrows and waved him forwards. "You came to see me," he said, when Williams still hesitated. "You might as well come the rest of the way inside."

Williams gave him a quick, nervous smile and walked over to drop into the chair facing Harry, the same one Malfoy had sat in. "I know," he muttered. He had darker blond hair than Malfoy did, and darker eyes. But almost anyone's eyes would look darker than those pale grey ones, Harry thought. "You frighten me, though."

Harry sighed, but did what he could to paste a smile on his face. "What about me frightens you?" he asked. "The magic? The fact that I called myself a Dark Lord? The only reason I did that was to protect Hogwarts."

Williams started and then gaped at him. "But why would _that _protect Hogwarts?" he asked, after a few minutes in which Harry thought he might suffocate from breathlessness. "You don't know—there's no way that it _could_. They'll just come after you and hurt you more than they would if you'd stayed an Auror." He coughed and toyed in his pocket with his wand, and Harry nodded. Maybe he had come as a messenger with an ultimatum from the Ministry, and was trying to figure out how to lead into the subject.

"They'll leave Hogwarts alone if they don't want to face my magic," Harry replied. "And them leaving it alone is really all I care about."

"You don't care about other people?" Williams faced him squarely now, and he had his hand on his wand firmly. _Using my supposed indifference to nerve himself to face me, _Harry thought wisely. _He doesn't have to worry about whether the Ministry is doing something just or not if I'm frightening._

"I care about the way they treat Hogwarts, and the way they treat my friends, and the way they treat me," Harry said, mentally ignoring the Hermione-voice in the back of his head that murmured he would have to care about more things than that eventually, or he would start to lose allies. "Right now, that's as far as I want to spread my magic. Hate me if you want, but that's what I want to do."

Williams shook his head a little. "I don't hate you, but you are shortsighted," he murmured. "You don't think about how much you're scaring people, and you don't think about the way that you'll go."

Harry blinked at him. He had to admit, it was a little refreshing to have someone argue with him who wasn't using the same tactics Hermione did. "What do you mean? By proclaiming myself a Dark Lord, I'll inevitably turn out to be as bad as Voldemort, is that what you're saying?"

Williams flinched at the name, and then took a deep breath. "You'll do things in the name of defending Hogwarts that are evil," he said. "You have to care about other things, especially when you're as powerful as you are. You just have to."

Harry would have replied, but that was when Williams took his wand from his pocket and said, "_Avada Kedavra._"

Harry might have been able to resist the Killing Curse yet again when it hit him, but he wasn't about to take the risk. He dived under the desk instead, and the curse soared overhead and hit the wall behind him. Harry rolled back over and propped himself up on one elbow, staring at Williams, who was calmly turning around and focusing his wand on him again.

"Are you _mental_?" Harry panted.

"That's one thing I'm sure they'll say about me when I succeed and deprive the world of the harm you'll do it," Williams replied, sounding unconcerned. "And I'm sure someone will manage to argue that I should be arrested for your murder. But it really doesn't matter, you see. You'll still be gone, and the world will be safe. I won't care about them and what they say any more than you care about the people who will compare you to You-Know-Who."

"A would-be killer who still can't say Voldemort's name," Harry said, and reared up on his knees. "I would have hoped the one who took me out would have more _courage _than that, at least."

Williams's face twisted, and he charged. Harry didn't know if he intended to use the Killing Curse again, and he didn't wait to find out. He flung himself at Williams instead, and the two of them went down to the floor with the wand between them, and Harry fumbling for his own, and Williams spitting and cursing into his face.

And then Harry remembered where they were, and the advantage he had, and felt correspondingly stupid.

He laid his arms down on the floor, and requested Hogwarts's help. Williams was grunting now as his hands closed on Harry's throat, but he cried out in the next instant when the floor thrust up beneath his chest and legs and threw him off Harry.

Harry sat up and dusted himself off, his eyes locked on Williams. Williams lay still in the middle of the floor, because every time he tried to sit up, manacles of wood appeared and coiled around his wrists. He finally understood the general idea and fell back with an angry, incoherent sound, his eyes locked on Harry's face.

"Why?" he asked. "You ought to know that I'm not the only one, that others will come who don't want _anyone _to become a Dark Lord."

Harry touched the floor and thanked Hogwarts silently. The magic came back to him with a curl and wave like the tail of an excited kitten. Harry smiled a little. Hogwarts was proud of defending him, and perhaps happy that it got to do something. Lifting Malfoy in his chair the other day and marching the Governors out yesterday hadn't been nearly enough.

"Who are you with?" he asked. "Who do you represent? Are they likely to send someone else now that you've failed?"

"I came for myself." Williams lifted his head as much as he could when Hogwarts had come up with a collar for his neck, too, and stared unflinchingly at Harry. "I thought someone who knew you should be the one to kill you, that you might appreciate the personal touch. And the Ministry hasn't overcome their fear yet. By the time they do, it might be too late to kill you."

Harry sighed. "God knows why I believe you, but I do." He wondered for a moment why Hogwarts hadn't picked up on Williams's hostile intent, and then laughed a little, shortly. He had mostly armed the school's defenses against people hostile to _Hogwarts, _not himself. It hadn't occurred to him that someone might want to kill him without also wanting to close the school.

"You're going to go evil, you know," Williams said, watching him with clear, untroubled eyes, even as the wooden manacles lifted him and wrestled him into position against the wall.

"I suppose when that starts, my friends will be the ones to stop me," Harry said, and leaned back in his chair behind the desk, and pondered Williams. If he hadn't come from the Ministry or the Board of Governors, then they wouldn't care what Harry did to him, or if he sent him somewhere, or if he told everyone what he had done.

_That's the best thing to do._

The thought seemed to come from Hogwarts, rather than Hermione. The Hermione-voice in the back of his head generally advised him to do less reckless things. Harry nodded slowly. He had told everyone he was a Dark Lord, whether or not that was a good thing, and he had to live with the consequences.

_Like people coming to slaughter me._

But the people who thought he was their victim would need to live with the consequences, too. Harry leaned forwards and smiled at Williams. He didn't seem nervous, even though Harry had tried to make his smile as unnerving as possible. He just watched Harry and shook his head slightly.

"You don't know what will happen," he said. "You don't know how many people will oppose you. And someday soon, one of them will get through and kill you. I almost did."

"I wasn't suspecting you," Harry said. "Doesn't that say something about my innocent and unsuspicious nature, that I just let you walk right in here and you almost killed me?"

"You can't be innocent any more," Williams said. "You're a Dark Lord."

Harry rolled his eyes and stood up. "That bloody title has blinded you. You think you already know the story and how it'll go, don't you? The bloody hero who'll kill me, the way that someone _has _to be a hero and the horrible things I'll do now that I have the title? But maybe I'm interested in telling different stories."

"You can't," Williams said, although he squirmed a little in his bonds as though he was worried about what Harry would do next. "You started telling this one when you started talking about being a Dark Lord, and you can't take that back because you're tired of it. You have to keep going ahead and hope that someone else doesn't make it through."

Harry smiled. "No, I don't. I can still give you a different name than hero." He moved forwards and stood so close to Williams that his eyes almost crossed as he regarded Harry. "Murderer. Assassin."

"Killing a Dark Lord isn't murder," Williams said.

"Killing a Dark Lord who never hurt anyone and hasn't come up with any plans of conquest yet might be," Harry said gently. "And I don't intend to let the Ministry judge you and comfort you. I'm going to let the press judge you."

"Look, this is ridiculous," Williams said, struggling hard enough now that Harry had to command Hogwarts to hold him tighter. "You _had _to know this would happen. You don't have the right to act completely surprised."

"I could be surprised about the length of time that it took, maybe," Harry said. "But what matters is I'm going to give you a punishment of my own. You thought you could murder me without consequences. It's time to show you, and them, the kind of consequences I hand out." He put his hands on either side of Williams's face and closed his eyes, reaching for his power the way he had when he bonded with Hogwarts.

Williams cried out, but Harry thought it was more from the strangeness of the magic flowing through him than because he was in pain. Sure enough, when he opened his eyes and looked again, Williams's face was pale, his jaw dangling—

And his face changed, the way Harry had wanted it to be. Across his forehead ran the letters in pimples arranged the way Hermione had once cast a spell to arrange them on Marietta's: _MURDERER._

"There you are," Harry said, and smiled at Williams, and dropped him on the floor. The manacles coiled back down into the wooden floorboards, and Harry patted Williams on the shoulder. "Now you can go and live your normal life, but anyone who looks at you will know what you tried to do."

Williams felt at his forehead and otherwise looked so panicked that Harry drew his wand and conjured a mirror. Williams stared at the pimples, and then set his jaw and looked at Harry as if he thought Harry would kill him for speaking the words but he had to do it anyway.

"You have no right to do that," he whispered. "It was a cruel thing to do."

"And trying to kill me wasn't?" Harry raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "See, I used to care about that sort of thing, balancing fairness and everything, and not doing bad things even to people who did bad things to me. But now I've lived in the wizarding world for several years without a war, and I realize that _no one else _thinks like that. They just want to take advantage of me and then get upset when I defend myself. I don't see any reason to indulge them in a way that gives them all the moral high ground."

"But I'll bear this for the rest of my life." Williams reached up and felt at his forehead, fingers stumbling among the pimples.

"And if you got your way, I wouldn't have _had _the rest of a life," Harry said sharply. "Shut up and go away."

Williams looked as though he would have liked to stay there and argue, so Harry had the floor rear up in front of him in a temporary desk, shoving him towards the moving staircase. Williams was still trying to protest when the door shut in front of his face and he began to ride the staircase down.

Harry leaned on the wall and sighed. Then he straightened up.

He wanted to tell his friends what had happened, preferably before they got the news from the papers. But there was someone he wanted to speak to first.

* * *

Draco jumped when he turned around. One moment he had been alone in the sitting room that he and Rosenthal were setting up as an interviewing room, making sure the decorations showed just the right amount of taste and not enough wealth to offend, and the next second Potter was standing behind him.

"How did you get in here?" Draco asked, swallowing against his own heartbeat and frowning at Potter.

"Oh, I persuaded the wards to let me in," Potter said, and then focused on him. "Someone came into the school today and tried to kill me. I didn't anticipate that happening."

Draco blinked, but decided that he would do better by going along with Potter's mental way of looking at the world, especially when Potter could walk through his wards like they weren't even there. "Really? I did. I didn't know it would happen so soon. I thought the Ministry would wait to see what your real intentions were, because most of them probably don't believe that you _really _set yourself up as a Dark Lord."

"He was someone who knew me, and was acting on his own, not from the Ministry." Potter shook his head. "I didn't anticipate _that _at all. I need you to tell me how you overcame your past and made yourself appear reasonable to the press. They all think I'm evil now, and they hate me. I'm going to defend Hogwarts, but I want them to leave me alone most of the time, not constantly challenge me. How did you do it?"

Draco felt as though his eyebrows might levitate off his face. But he managed to smile and say, "You know this information isn't going to be free, right?"

Potter nodded. "But I don't know what you want me to pay you with. The open support of a Dark Lord could hurt you more than it could help you."

Draco thought for a moment, but he could think of nothing better than the plan that had immediately leaped into his head. "Why don't you stay to dinner, and we'll talk about it?"

Potter didn't even pause to consider before he nodded. "I'd like that."

_And so would I, _Draco thought. Perhaps it was only because Potter was someone who wouldn't be horrified if Draco said what he was _really _thinking, but it was still an interesting impulse.

"Come on, then," he said, and led the way further into the Manor.


	8. An Uncommon Dinner

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—An Uncommon Dinner_

"This is really nice."

Draco turned and blinked at Potter. He hadn't expected to hear Potter say that, but now that he thought about it, why the hell not? Potter could certainly admire beauty. Draco didn't think he had the same instinct for it as a Malfoy did, but on the other hand, if he was totally blind to it, then he would have let the beautiful points of Hogwarts go to the dogs, instead of having the house-elves clean.

"Thank you," Draco said, and took a seat at the head of the small dining room table. This was much more intimate than the one in the great dining room, capable of seating only six, but it still had candles casting their wavering reflections in the dark mahogany, and the chairs upholstered in delicate gold and white. Draco wondered how long it was since he had looked at it and thought that, yes, it _was _rather nice. Perhaps he owed Potter for making him think about that.

"Please sit down," he added, realizing that Potter still stood up and looked at him.

"Thank you," Potter said, and dropped into the chair on the other end of the table. Draco paused, having thought without thinking that Potter would take the seat next to him, and then shook off the reaction and reached for the plates that were already appearing on the table, courtesy of the house-elves. "Do you think that everyone's going to hate me now?"

Draco darted his eyes to Potter as he served himself potatoes, soft and thick and fluffy as buttered clouds, from the plate the elves had brought. "You don't sound very concerned about it."

"There are plenty of people who hate me already," Potter said, nodding thanks as Draco floated the plate down the table to him and he began to scoop the potatoes off. "I was just wondering how far that hatred would extend."

Draco filled his cup with clear wine, considering how best to respond. "If you're going to make a political point," he said, "and I think that was what you accepted my help for, you'll have to think in terms of more nuance than that."

"Why?" Potter sipped at the potatoes with his spoon, and shook his head at the elf who came to him with a glass of wine. With one agonized glance at Draco, the elf changed it to a glass of water, which Potter smiled at. "They don't."

"True," Draco said, sighing. "Why don't you tell me more about the young man who appeared at your office door and tried to kill you?"

"I suppose it wasn't _that _bad," Potter said, and launched into the tale. Draco listened while eating the salad the elves had brought, with transparent slivers of chicken and fish mixed in among the bright green leaves of spinach and the round and dewy berries. Potter ate the salad without flinching, which again surprised Draco. He would have thought Potter was more one for steak and awful Muggle sandwiches.

When he finished, Draco had to close his eyes and shake his head. "You're right that some of your enemies don't think with any nuance at all."

"_Our _enemies."

"I beg your pardon?" Draco focused on him again.

Potter held his glass of water to his lips, moistening them. His plate was empty, and he didn't look out longingly for dessert, either. Perhaps some of Draco's notions about Muggleborn and half-blood dinner guests had been formed on analogy with worse people than he suspected.

"_Our _enemies," Potter repeated, staring at him through the water and the glass. "Your enemies and mine. Which means that you should act against mine, and I'll help you with anyone that you feel compelled to handle, of course." He drank.

Draco leaned back, and then stopped, shaking his head. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to put more distance between him and Potter, and that was probably how Potter would interpret the gesture, rightly or wrongly.

This was what he _had _wanted, wasn't it? Encouraging Potter to think of them as part of a team rather than Potter acting wildly on his own, and that meant that Potter would take on his enemies as well as Draco taking on his?

Well, yes, it was. But Draco hadn't honestly expected that much reciprocation, because he had thought Potter totally occupied with Hogwarts.

"If I can do something."

Draco came back to the conversation. He had to stop wandering into his own thoughts around Potter. It was dangerous, clearly, and would take him further away than he liked from the quick drama unfolding across the table. "What do you mean?"

"If I _can _do something about your enemies." Potter gestured with his water glass to nothing in particular, his sharp eyes on Draco. "If you think that the way I handle someone who tries to kill me is too extreme, I can only assume that you'll want me to keep away from the more delicate political situations you're involved in."

Draco took a deep breath, swallowed some more of the pale wine, and put his glass aside, shaking his head. "I didn't…that's not what I meant, Potter."

"But you didn't really respond to the question I asked, or to my story." Potter gave him a sharp smile. "What do you think? Should I have been gentler? Find Williams and tell him that I'm going to take those pimples off his forehead and not brand him as a murderer anymore?"

"Don't do that." Draco bit his lip at the shattering-glass sound of his own voice. He sat back and sucked in a breath. "I don't know that you can help being what you are, Potter."

"But it would still be good to know if you thought of that as something horrible or not." Potter's voice was calm, outwardly, but his fingers clenched around his glass. Even knowing this wasn't Hogwarts and he wasn't bonded to any furniture in Draco's house, Draco thought he should still answer.

"Not horrible," Draco said. "But unsubtle, and I think this will confirm in most people's minds that you're—unstable. A _real _Dark Lord would have killed him. The saint they thought you were would have sent him back with soft words. None of what you just told me you did fits in with the prior public perception of you, and you know they _hate _that."

Potter raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his own chair, nodding. "That makes sense," he said, and smiled at him. "Thanks, Malfoy. I was afraid that you would come up with some political analysis that depended on points so minute I couldn't even see them, but this makes sense."

"I wouldn't deliberately try to trick or baffle you," Draco began. If Potter thought Draco was dealing with him in faith as bad as that, then this alliance would never grow the wings it needed to fly.

"I don't think it would be deliberate." Potter stroked his chin, where the stubble was coming in bristly and thick, and grinned at him. "I don't think you're _that _much of a git. But it would mean that you would be making connections that were natural to you, and ones that I just couldn't follow. Like you said, I'm not anyone's idea of a traditional Dark Lord. Someone who was could either follow it or would be too mad to worry about political consequences in the first place."

Draco grimaced and nodded. "Does it bother you?" he asked, because knowing if it did or not would tell him some of the ways that he _shouldn't _try to work with Potter. "That they don't see you the way you are, but as saint or madman?"

Potter's smile twisted, and became something Draco had never seen. If he had dreamed about Potter going Dark, then he would have pictured him with expressions similar to the _real _Dark Lord's. But Potter just looked tired, and grim, and ready to follow the hunt he had started anyway.

"Yes," he said simply. "But not as much as it would if they had only now started doing it. They were reading me the wrong way when I was a kid. Heir of Slytherin, remember? And liar or minion of Voldemort when I was talking about him coming back." He paused, noting the flinch that Draco couldn't control, and shrugged a little. "Sorry."

"But you're an adult now, and you saved the world," Draco said, doggedly pushing for an answer to his question, although he was starting to be sorry that he had. "That has to sting, that you did what they wanted you to do and they still mistrust you."

Potter rolled his eyes a little. "It does. But they're such…I don't know, Malfoy, can you understand if I tell you that they're all idiots, and that makes it hurt less? The people who believe that kind of _Prophet _article are idiots, I mean. It would hurt if my friends believed it, or if people I thought were intelligent did."

"They might start," Draco warned him. "After what you did today, and especially because you _proclaimed _yourself Dark Lord."

Potter nodded a little, rapidly. "But I've been thinking about that, especially since Williams decided to try and kill me. The name Dark Lord is actually the best one I could have chosen. It separates the stupid people from the ones I can trust. The ones who try to deal with me and ask about the reasons are the ones I _want _to deal with. The others, I can cast off to the side."

Draco narrowed his eyes a little. "I'm surprised to hear any Gryffindor talking about casting people away."

Potter sat up. For a moment, his eyes held a light that Draco had never seen in them before, and his hands folded in front of him on the table as though he was thinking about picking up his wand and launching himself at Draco. Draco laid his hand on his own wand, ready to prevent that by whatever means he had to use.

"Did you know," Potter whispered, "that the Sorting Hat, which so many people think is infallible and never changes its mind, told me I would do well in Slytherin?"

Draco stared at him because he didn't know what else to do. The words seemed to have frozen his hand and his tongue both in place.

Potter fell back in his chair laughing, and ended up choking on it, still grinning at Draco. Draco thought it was probably the most natural and open expression Potter had ever worn around him. Part of him was thinking that, anyway. The rest of him was ticking along in shock, encased in crystal, at a distance from the world.

"The look on your _face_," Potter said, shaking his head again. "Of course, the Hat isn't infallible, and you can persuade it. I told it that I didn't want to go to Slytherin, and it put me in Gryffindor. And it considered Hermione for Ravenclaw, but it put her in Gryffindor because she thought that was the best House and that was where she wanted to go. So it can't make the right decision the first time every time."

"It told me to go to Slytherin the minute it touched my head," Draco whispered. Whips seemed to strike his mind, hitting some of the cherished impressions he had carried for so long and breaking them up.

"Well, of course," Potter said, and shrugged at him. "You were telling me even the first time we met that you wanted to be in Slytherin. If someone really wants to go one place and has the personality to do well in that House, I don't think the Hat argues with them."

Draco frowned. He had thought—oh, he had thought stupid things, it appeared. He hadn't realized how much of what he expected from Potter and thought it right for him to do still stemmed from those old House stereotypes. He had understood Potter in part because Potter was a Gryffindor. That meant he would react in some predictable ways.

_Foolish, _Draco scolded himself as he met those steady green eyes and saw Potter giving him a glance that was more than curious. _Of course I should have already known that he wouldn't always react in those stereotypical ways, because he declared himself a Dark Lord, and what uncomplicated Gryffindor would do _that?

He cleared his throat a little, and said, "It appears that I've misjudged you, Potter."

Potter waved a lazy hand. "That's easy to do, Malfoy. And I've done the same thing to you in the past. Now that we have an alliance, the best thing we can try is not to do it anymore."

Draco cleared his throat some more. He didn't want to admit how much the stereotypes had still controlled his thinking _after _he made the alliance, but if Potter didn't intend to bring it up, then he didn't see any reason to do so, either.

"All right," he said. "So you've told me about Williams, and I'll tell you what I think is going to happen."

Potter nodded, eyes rapt on Draco's face. Draco found himself sitting up and taking in a slightly deeper breath. It was ridiculous, the way he behaved when Potter paid attention to him, but as long as he knew about it, then it was a weakness he was anticipating before it could hobble him in the campaign.

_Or bother Rosenthal, or irritate Potter, come to think of it._

* * *

Harry thought he had never seen Malfoy's face so clear, so thoughtful, and his eyes bearing a look that Harry could _understand._ He supposed it was because Malfoy understood political things so well and Harry didn't. It was different than competing with him at Quidditch, which they were both supposed to be good at.

_Or maybe we just aren't competing anymore._

"There will be some people who are sorry for Williams, and believe his life is ruined," Draco told him quietly. "Those are the people who will believe whatever the _Prophet _prints, too, so I don't think you have to worry about them."

Harry smiled at him. "Great. And the others?"

"There will be some who want to wait and see." Malfoy shrugged a little. "They could end up jumping to your side, or not. It's hard to worry about them until they get impressed or irritated enough to make a move. Court them if you can, but don't worry about them as much as about the last group."

"Who are going to hate me?"

Malfoy straightened up and stared at him down the length of his nose, which actually wasn't as long and pointy as Harry had thought it was in the past. Of course, that meant it was also less impressive when Malfoy tried to stare down it. Harry played quietly with his fingers, and smiled at him, and waited.

"Who are going to _want _to be impressed with you," Malfoy corrected him. "And you can appeal to them if you do a number of things."

"What things?"

"Do you _really _have no idea?" Malfoy snapped, forsaking his sage pose.

"I prefer to have you tell me." Harry laughed again as Malfoy gave him another glare, and deliberately lounged back in his chair. "What? You're the expert, I'm not, and I thought I was supposed to listen to experts."

Malfoy rolled his eyes and looked around as though indicating to an invisible audience how stupid and self-involved Harry was. Harry continued to grin at him. Malfoy really was almost adorable when he acted like this.

_And I'm drunk on pure water._

"You should show that you won't back down from defending Hogwarts," Malfoy began, as carefully as though Harry might have trouble understanding simple English. Of course, to him it was probably simple-_minded_ English, Harry thought, oddly content. "That you keep your word. That you don't need to be violent. I think that's what you did with Williams, although of course certain people are going to interpret that differently. But if you give some kind of interview introducing the idea that, rather, it's that you don't _need _to be violent, because you have so much magic, I think this third group will snap that up."

Harry nodded. "Good idea. I want to tell my friends about Williams next, before the news comes to them from someone else as a nasty shock, but I'll make sure that I set up an interview right after." He paused, thinking about the articles he had sometimes read in the _Daily Prophet _and the people other than Rita Skeeter who could read it. "What do you think about Helena Spivak?"

Malfoy blinked. "A more sensible choice than I expected you to make."

"Of course," Harry said, and kept to himself all the other things he could have said. He had encouraged Malfoy to take the view of him as someone who needed guidance, after all. It was natural that Malfoy would do so in more than one area. "I'll get in contact with my friends, and in contact with her." He paused, watching the way Malfoy was looking at him and tapping his fingers on his knee. "Do you want me to mention you, or not?"

"You might mention the rumors that are going to start circulating about Minister Tillipop in a few days," Malfoy murmured.

Harry nodded. He understood why Malfoy might shy away from a direct linking with Harry right now. He didn't even know that Harry would be successful in holding onto Hogwarts, after all. "Okay. The truth, and the opposition, and the fact that I'm more powerful than any of them dream. Think I should mention that the school's bonded to me?"

"Did you use its magic against Williams?" Malfoy was sitting up and paying attention to him again.

Harry nodded, thinking of the way the floor had herded Williams to the stairs.

"Then mention it," Malfoy said. "If only so you can give a counter-perspective to the stories Williams will spread." He pursed his lips and whistled a little. "We're really going to do it, aren't we? Make your crazy takeover of Hogwarts something that people will just have to live with."

"We are," Harry said, standing up. "Thanks for dinner, Malfoy." He held out his hand, wondering for a second if Malfoy would refuse it.

But either Malfoy didn't think that a good idea or he was more up to the challenge than Harry thought he was, because he took it with his eyes glinting and gave it a few good shakes.

"I'll see you later, Potter," he said.

Harry held up his hand and stepped out through the wards again, coaxing them to part. He caught Malfoy's hard stare as he did so. _Oops. _He shrugged at him apologetically, then Apparated. He hadn't done any permanent damage to the wards, he knew. Or at least, he didn't think so. Malfoy would have to let him know if he had.

_We'll both need to get used to each other._


	9. By Storm

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—By Storm_

"You did _what_?"

Ron's voice was a little faint. Harry winced in spite of himself. He hadn't meant to make either of his friends react that way. Maybe Hermione would have, if she hadn't already gone through the crisis of him declaring himself a Dark Lord.

As it was, Hermione just rolled her eyes and sat back from the table. Harry had come to their house for dessert, and he leaned out and snagged another chocolate biscuit from the plate of them in the center. Molly must have made them; Ron refused to try cooking, and also refused to let Hermione near the kitchen after what was affectionately known as the "Spiderweb Incident."

"I put pimples on Bradley Williams's head naming him a murderer," Harry repeated gently. "So everyone will know anyway, and the best way to make sure that I get to tell _my _side of the story is to give an interview to the papers now."

"I didn't mean that, mate." Ron picked up his glass of pumpkin juice and took a careful sip. When he put it down again, he seemed to be stronger, maybe because the taste reminded him of times at Hogwarts when they had survived breaking the rules. "I meant, you went and had dinner with _Malfoy_?"

Harry rolled his eyes in tune with Hermione this time. "He could be a good ally," Harry pointed out. "He seemed serious about helping me to become a better Dark Lord."

"There's no such thing," Hermione interrupted firmly. "But I'm glad that it sounds like he talked some political sense into you, Harry. Maybe you won't do something like sending out those letters again without thinking it through."

"Knowing Malfoy, he'll have him down in the cellar sacrificing fuzzy little animals in Dark rituals," Ron said.

"He wouldn't go that far," Harry said, and picked up another biscuit while composing his face, so that he wouldn't sound like he was joking when he said it. "There might be a snake or two involved. Slytherins think it's good luck, you know."

Unfortunately, he succeeded too well and lost it at the look on Ron's face when he was in the middle of the biscuit, which led to a lot of crumbs sprayed everywhere and Hermione rising to her feet, shaking her head in disgust. "That's enough," she said. "Come into the drawing room where we can talk like civilized people."

Harry followed her meekly, at least until Ron caught his elbow and whispered, "What else did he tell you about Slytherins, mate?"

"He couldn't believe I was almost one," Harry said.

Ron frowned. "Well, of course not. He thinks of you as the perfect Gryffindor. What are you going to do to keep him from thinking that way?"

Harry clasped Ron's arm and squeezed. Sometimes Ron was abrupt and harsh and ignorant, and sometimes he was the best friend Harry could have. "I think I made a pretty good start on it just by telling him that the Sorting Hat considered me for Slytherin."

He would have said more, but Hermione huffed from the drawing room, and Ron got an alarmed look in his eyes that made talking with him worse than useless. He ran. Harry trailed after him, chuckling.

_Yes, I think I can have both my friends and my allies, as long as I make sure that they don't meet too often in dark alleys. _

And setting up a makeshift altar at Hogwarts with a conjured snake on it was looking better by the minute.

* * *

Draco stood up and turned in a slow circle. Pansy whistled and clapped her hands. Blaise leaned forwards and considered Draco's robes with his chin on his fist and a slight, contemplative frown that changed into a slight smile. Draco tried not to show how much of the tension went out of his shoulders at that.

"Yes," Blaise said. "That will do. Provided that you don't muss them too much," he added, with a faint sniff.

Draco looked down at his robes again. They were a kind of bright, shimmery grey, the color of rain falling behind glass. He had been reluctant to wear robes of that color at first, but Rosenthal had taken several photos of them on herself while she was Polyjuiced as him, and Draco had accepted. She said they made him look mature, distant but still approachable, and wealthy. The voters who cared about elections still looked for that in their candidates.

"I'll try," he told his best friends solemnly, and turned away from them. He was waiting in the back drawing room of Pansy's house for Rosenthal to come in and tell him the reporters were all gathered. Not as many of them would come to this speech as the last one, because Minister Tillipop was holding a conference on ways to deal with "the Dark Lord Potter."

"What has Potter done now?"

Draco blinked and glanced at Pansy. He hadn't tried to explain his dinner with Potter, because neither of his friends would understand. "What do you mean? Declared himself Dark Lord, and that was the last I heard."

Pansy shook her head and stood up to cross the room, ending up in front of him with her fists on her hips. "You only get that _look _when you're thinking about him and when it's something new, not the old stories they've already reported in the papers. What did he do?"

Draco hesitated. But he had already trusted his friends with the inner secrets of his campaign, and they hadn't gossiped yet. Of course, that might be because no one had offered Pansy enough money yet. But he chose to accept the risk.

"I had dinner with him last night," he said. "He walked in and out through my wards and in general acted like an arrogant bastard, planning to rule on power alone, but he also revealed that he was almost Sorted Slytherin. So there's that."

Pansy reared back and stared at him as she would if he'd admitted sheltering a huge spider in his clothes. Blaise stood up, and his eyes were bright in a way that Draco had only ever seen clothes turn them.

"Well," he said. "That does change things. Do you think developing a working relationship with him would be profitable?"

Draco gave him a slow smile, which made Blaise laugh and clap his hands. "Of course you do," he said. "Which means that you've started it."

Draco nodded. He perhaps should have tried harder to keep the secret, but, well, he was sure that Potter would reveal it to his friends in the meantime. So he might as well enjoy himself with the people who truly understood him. "We talked about tactics, and Rosenthal is trying to find someone who could advise him."

Blaise snickered. "No wonder she looked as if she was tearing her hair out the last time I saw her. Someone who can advise _Potter_?"

Draco gave a graceful little shrug. "Well, I can't do it _all _the time."

"I don't know if you should be doing it at all," Pansy pointed out, with a single, even glance at him. "Yes, he's fun to play with right now, and the fact that he was almost Slytherin makes me credit him with more common sense than I thought he had. But there's the fact that you need to concentrate on your campaign."

Draco shrugged again. "Having dinner with him a few times and giving him a few words of advice doesn't take much of my attention. If he requires more of me than that, granted, I might think about giving up the connection."

"Don't shrug so much, it ruins the line of your robes," Blaise said, and reached out to pinch a crease on Draco's shoulder back into place. "As you wish, then. I think you're foolish to try this, but not so foolish that I'll walk away."

"Good," Draco said. "Thank you," he added, when he turned the other way and found Pansy watching him.

She shook her head, making her hair bob around her face. "I think the problems won't come from anything Potter does, unless you stand up as his champion while he admits to murder. The problem is that you have that old obsession with him."

Draco snapped his head down, ending the conversation as fast as an insult would have. It wasn't Blaise that was the problem, since he knew, but Draco didn't want the disturbing echoes of the past those words awakened rolling around his head while he was trying to prepare for his next public appearance.

And just in time, Rosenthal put her head around the door and said to Draco, "I have some candidates for Potter's adviser that we can discuss later. In the meantime, will you _please _come out and stand ready?"

Draco did it, smile and robes perfectly in place, while the world rocked outside with the voices with his supporters.

Not as much as it would rock a few hours later, but Draco had no idea of that then.

* * *

"May I say that I'm flattered you chose me to be the one to record your announcements, Mr. Potter?"

Harry smiled. He had chosen Helena Spivak for more reasons than just generally agreeing with her articles whenever they appeared. She didn't show much fear of the people she interviewed, although some of them were prominent Ministry officials. She simply sat down, took out her parchment and quill, and waited for what they would say next.

And she didn't call him "Dark Lord Potter," the way that some of the letters coming to his office did. Harry supposed he could hardly complain about that, when he had been the one to claim the title in those letters he sent out. But the address in the writing of other people always looked cringing, or, in the case of the threats, blustering.

Spivak faced him and lifted her quill in readiness. "I have some questions that I think our readers will be very interested in the answers to, Mr. Potter, but in the meantime, why don't you tell me what you wanted to say?"

"It's about a man named Bradley Williams, who came to see me yesterday," Harry said, and leaned forwards to study Spivak's face. There was no flicker of recognition in her eyes, although of course that might come later. Perhaps Williams had told another reporter about his assault on Harry, or hadn't done it yet. "He told me he wanted to kill me, but that he didn't represent any organization that wanted me dead. Based on other things he said, I tend to believe that."

Spivak blinked a little, but wrote enthusiastically. "And what happened when he tried to curse you?"

"I stopped him," Harry said simply, and leaned back to gesture around the Headmistress's office—well, fine, his office now. He didn't think McGonagall ever had any intention of moving back in, and while in one sense that was a shame, he might as well face reality. "Hogwarts and I did. I'm bonded to the school, as you might have heard some rumors of from the Board of Governors."

"They didn't seem _quite _sure what you had done," said Spivak, but her dark eyes had begun to shine. "Yes, they talked a little about some of the strange things the school had done when they were present."

Harry nodded. "I want everyone to know that I'm bonded to it, and any attempt to take the school away from me is going to be met with defensive action from Hogwarts itself. Maybe, if people take that seriously, then I can stop entertaining attackers like this soon."

"But is that all you did, made him leave?" Spivak had her head bowed as she scribbled again. "That seems a mild punishment for a murderer. And the people you want to make leave you alone might think so, too."

Harry nodded. "I know. Which means that I'm sending a message with what I did to him."

"And what _was _that?" A certain thickness had started to creep into Spivak's voice. Harry leaned back for a minute, reveling in the feeling that he could make someone else impatient enough to hang on his every word. He let her wait a few seconds before he smiled and told her.

"I branded MURDERER on his forehead in pimples."

Spivak stared at him in silence, and then began to scribble again. Harry hoped she would be able to read her own scrawl later; she was writing so fast it seemed like it might be a challenge. But her mouth was twitching wildly, and Harry suspected that the emotions that made her write like that weren't fear and a desire to get out of his presence.

"Isn't that similar to a trick that someone else used?" she asked, looking up. "I seem to remember a girl named Marietta Edgecombe…"

"I got the idea from my friend Hermione, yes," Harry said. "I don't see any reason that Williams should be able to hide what he intended, even if it isn't what he actually _did_. And since he wasn't working with anyone else, he doesn't have Ministry workers or a Board of Governors who might be upset about it, either."

He'd mainly said that to clarify, again, that Williams was working by himself, but Spivak sat up, and her shoulders hunched. "You think the Ministry _might _send someone to kill you?"

Well. Here it came. Harry ought to have known it would come out this soon and chosen his words better if he wanted to avoid it. He held her eyes and nodded. "I'm an embarrassment to them, as the former Chosen One who turned out Dark and an Auror who quit with no notice to them. Of course they could."

Spivak watched him as though he was a goose laying golden eggs, and then began scribbling away so hard that Harry thought she would tear the parchment. He tried to sit as alertly as he could and look like he was in control of the interview, when secretly he wanted to admit that nothing had gone the way he expected it to so far.

But Spivak looked up at him a moment later, her quill still clutched in fingers that looked nerveless, and demanded breathlessly, "Then do you think they might try even now, when you found out about Williams and stopped him? When you're warned and lots of other people know you're warned?"

Harry understood then. She was excited at the thought that she might have uncovered a secret Ministry plot to destroy Harry Potter, and she would be the first to report the story.

Harry hesitated one moment. He had no evidence that the Ministry wanted to kill him right now. He knew that Minister Tillipop would probably denounce him, but that was a long way from choosing assassins and sending them out with a mission. Or even ordering him to surrender, which they hadn't done yet, either.

But he remembered the way that so many people in the Ministry had looked at him in the last little while, and he stiffened his back and nodded, his chin coming up as he thought about it.

"Yes," he said. "I'm sure that eventually, they'll decide the only way to deal with a Dark Lord is to conquer him. And one way to do that would be to send lots of Aurors, sure, and require them to arrest me. But when you publish the news about me being bonded to Hogwarts, how many of them will want to come after me in my own lair? A single assassin under cover of night might as well do it."

Spivak hadn't looked up in the last three minutes, so intent was she on the words spilling across the page. She did glance up as he finished speaking, though, and something about her intent, focused gaze made Harry stir a little uneasily. He hadn't realized she would look so much like a hunting ferret.

_Note: Never make that particular comparison in front of Malfoy._

"You think of Minister Tillipop as a personal enemy?" she asked quietly. "You think he would authorize this against someone who was his loyal Auror until a short time ago?"

And Harry took the step, turned the corner. In a way, he thought later, it was one of the best things he could have done. Malfoy was going to start spreading rumors about Tillipop soon. Harry was just spreading some of his own and giving things a little push.

"That's the point," Harry said, and thought he should rise to his feet to emphasize the point. After he considered it, though, he was glad that he had remained seated. "I'm no longer his loyal Auror. I'm not loyal to the Ministry at all. A Minister who would make a truce with me would be a good thing, but until that happens, all I can assume is that they'll want to attack me and act accordingly. I'm loyal to Hogwarts, and to the people who are students here and want to teach here, as long as they don't attack me, either. And even then, all I would do is put them out. I don't _have _to kill them."

"Just like you didn't have to kill Williams," Spivak whispered. Her face was alight. In another second, Harry thought, she was likely to jump up and start clapping her hands or something. "Mr. Potter—_Dark Lord _Potter—would you say that your magic is so great you don't have to fear the Ministry?"

_ Well, _Harry thought, and exhaled a little. _She came to that conclusion on her own. I didn't have to guide her as to what to say. That has to count for something, right?_

"That's exactly it," he said, and gave her a serene smile as she drew a camera out of her robe pocket and snapped his photograph.

Then Spivak was standing, holding out her hand, making her excuses. Harry saw how her hand shook, and knew it wasn't from fear. He smiled and shook back and let her go.

That smile would be on the front page of the _Prophet _tomorrow, he was certain.

And then the avalanche could _really _begin.


	10. Damage Done

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Ten—Damage Done_

"Someone needs to tell your precious Potter how to control himself."

Draco blinked and tilted his head back, swatting sleep out of his eyes. "What?" he asked, while the room grew brighter and he saw Pansy standing on the other side of the table, glaring at something that lay in the middle. Draco looked down and saw it was the _Daily Prophet_. He sighed and picked it up. "What has he done now?" he muttered, scanning the photograph.

His first thought was that someone had Polyjuiced as Potter, because the serene smile he wore made him look nothing like the man Draco had met with, eaten with, teased and bargained with. But then he made out the headline below, and was glad he hadn't eaten anything to choke on yet.

_MINISTRY TRIES TO ASSASSINATE FORMER AUROR_

The byline was Helena Spivak's, of course. Draco read through the article with growing disbelief, shaking his head when the feeling of nonsense got to be too much and he had to try and unload the accumulation in his brain. The headline was brilliant, distracting the reader from focusing on Potter declaring himself a Dark Lord and making anything the Ministry tried seem unjust. This wasn't self-defense, said those blunt words, or even a strike in a war against a Dark Lord, the way that it could have been. It was murder, pure and simple.

_No. Assassination. _Draco understood the difference between those two words, of course, since he started running for office. Murder was what you did to your neighbor who annoyed you one too many times. Assassination was what you did to a Minister.

He skimmed the article, which quoted Potter liberally. And Draco could even see how Potter had arrived at the conclusion that Tillipop wanted to kill him (which was _not _one of the accusations Draco had told him to make). He had made a statement that Spivak had pounced on, about his relationship with the Ministry, and then held it up and continued with it.

And Spivak had the story of her career, and Draco had…

What did he have, exactly?

Pansy was still raging in the background, complaining about the stupid things that Potter had always done and the stupider way that Draco had indulged his tenderness for them, when common sense should have made him reject them right away. But Draco could ignore her as long as she was listening to the sound of her own voice and not addressing him, and he pushed his chin into his palm and contemplated the picture and the article.

So. Why _had _Potter done this?

Because he had no choice, Draco supplied easily. He had made the remark, and Spivak had interpreted it one way, and Potter could back down or he could defend it, and he had chosen to defend it.

_But he could have been more careful from the beginning, and not said something so stupid._

Draco tilted his head, thinking about that, and never taking his eyes off the article in front of him in the meanwhile. That was true. But Potter wasn't a natural politician, and no matter what Slytherin instincts he had hinted to Draco he might have, he wasn't used to listening to them. Draco knew that. An outcome like this shouldn't have surprised him that much.

He had to smile. He was practicing the sort of tolerance Rosenthal had told him was natural to a Minister, and more than natural, necessary. If he _didn't _practice it, he would lose control of his Ministry as he met more and more people who disagreed with him, and who flung insults at him because they couldn't tolerate his past.

Pansy's voice changed, and Draco folded the paper and put it down, leaning back so he could focus on her.

"…have to realize that he could damage you," Pansy said, and leaned forwards and put her hands on the table, in a pose that Draco vaguely realized was supposed to be intimidating. She shook her head when Draco just blinked at her. "You aren't thinking about this at _all, _are you? You don't think that Potter will cost you enough to give him up."

"He's done something unexpected," Draco said, and crossed one leg up and over his lap, while finally reaching for the cup of coffee Pansy's house-elves had brought him. "But he didn't mention me at all. No one outside of you and his friends knows that we have an alliance."

"And Rosenthal," Pansy said.

Draco sometimes admired her determination to be thorough. This was not one of those times. He managed to smile, a smile that Pansy should take for a warning, and nodded a little. "But none of you will betray me. And it's implicitly Minister Tillipop that Potter's accused of wanting him dead, not me. How can that not help me?"

"Because you'll become part of the Ministry eventually, _you idiot_, and then you'll inherit the accusations," Pansy snapped, stepping back and crossing her arms in front of her chest. Her head poked up atop them, and she eyed Draco long enough to make her shake her head. "You still don't have any intention of letting him go."

"No," Draco said. "Because I intend to reveal my relationship with him—my alliance," he added, as he saw Pansy's eyes take fire and her lips open to object to what he had said, "at the proper time, and make it clear that I don't support whatever mad suppression measures Tillipop has dreamed up. That will be enough to distance me from them." And he sipped some more of his coffee and reached for one of the buttered scones that Pansy's elves were so clever at making.

Pansy spent some more time peering at him. Draco maintained a calm gaze. He didn't know what else he could do. What he had spoken was the truth, and he didn't think Potter's way of announcing his grudge against the Ministry could really do him harm. Maybe it could be annoying, the way Tillipop was annoying in general, but Draco didn't stop or slow down for minor obstacles.

Pansy sighed hard enough to make the surface of Draco's coffee ripple. Then she sat down on the other side of the table and said, "Since we can't detach you, we should plan what you're going to say when Tillipop responds to these accusations."

Draco laughed. "Who are you, Rosenthal?"

"This kind of politics, she's too pleasant for," Pansy said, with a sharp swish of her hand. "No, we need to think about what you know of Tillipop, and encourage those rumors that you started to plant yesterday, and we need to make sure that you visit a few more charities and orphanages and primary schools to improve your image as someone who gets along with everyone, and…"

Draco let her chatter and plan. This was politics the way Pansy understood it, cutthroat and uncaring, but proceeding under a surface of charm and polish.

And in the meantime, he could daydream about Potter, and the things he would say when he next saw him.

* * *

"But the Ministry _isn't _trying to kill you, mate."

Harry kicked up his legs on the desk in front of him, ignoring the way Ron winced. If anything, that should show whoever looked in that Harry wasn't inclined to imitate either Headmaster Dumbledore _or _Headmistress McGonagall. They would never have sat like this.

And Harry was different, anyway. He was the literal protector of Hogwarts, not the Headmaster. He would make decisions to keep the school safe, but what the students learned and so on was—

Then he had to stop that chain of thought, because what was he doing if not controlling their education when he thought about hiring professors and what the children would learn, other than to be loyal to the Ministry?

Ron's fingers snapped in front of Harry's eyes. He jumped, and realized that he'd been staring off into space and Ron was standing in front of him, glaring at him.

"Maybe Hermione is right," Ron muttered, barely loud enough for Harry to hear. "Declaring yourself a Dark Lord has done a number on your brain."

Harry sniffed at this description and rolled his neck a little. "I resent that remark."

"You didn't respond to what I said, and you have to, one way or the other," Ron said, flopping back into the chair on the other side of Harry's desk. "The Ministry isn't trying to kill you."

"They will soon," Harry said, and smiled a little at Ron. "And if it isn't Minister Tillipop, I think the Board of Governors would. They have a lot of proud people on there, and they won't like the fact that I humiliated them."

"But I haven't heard about any plots in the Ministry pointing to that," Ron said. "And you know how gossipy Aurors are."

"With people who are my best friends, or at least still perceived that way?" Harry asked dryly.

"That's my point!" Ron leaned forwards. "People talk around me all the time because they want me to talk back to them. They think I'm a _great _source of gossip, and even though they should know by now that I don't spread rumors about my mates, they keep hoping I'll change my mind. If I'm not hearing about it, it's not happening."

Harry considered that for a second. It was true that Ron had come up with really surprising gossip sometimes, things that even Hermione with all her fingers in different parts of the Ministry didn't hear. But he shook his head a second later, rejecting this theory. "I don't think something like this would be let out of a safe place where the conspirators could trust everyone," he said. "That means no casual Auror gossip."

"Maybe you're right," Ron said. "And maybe you're going mental."

Harry started to answer, but stopped as a house-elf popped up beside him with a little bow, carrying the _Daily Prophet. _It was the first edition published since the one that had Spivak's article in it, and Harry smiled a little and spread the paper in front of him. "I think we're about to find out," he said.

He immediately saw a photograph of Minister Tillipop shaking his head with a scowl on his face, but he went still when he saw the headline.

_HARRY POTTER DECLARED OFFICIALLY INSANE; ST. MUNGO'S RECORDS PULLED._

Harry discovered that he was sitting there and simply staring. Then he began to read the article. Like the article Hermione had brought him that had started this whole mess, the one about the Board of Governors getting ready to close Hogwarts, he only skimmed this one in flashes, while different kinds of fireworks went off behind his eyelids.

_...saw a Mind-Healer after the war…reminded the public that after the return of You-Know-Who...perhaps he wasn't a liar at the time, but now…Mr. Potter is not thinking of the safety of the public…when reached for comment, Minister Tillipop expressed more sorrow than anger…Mind-Healer Yarrow…_

Harry found that his hand was clenched on the paper, and it was burning where he touched and then healing itself again, so that he could read the words again, and that Ron was pulling gently at his fingers, trying to get his fist to open up.

"Mate, mate," he whispered. "Harry. Please."

Harry lifted his head and blinked, slowly. That was when he realized that the desk had reached out to him, opening its desk drawers so they touched his knees, and the papers and quills on it were hovering around his head. The portraits of the Headmasters on the walls gave fretful little cries as their frames tugged towards Harry. Harry leaned his head back on his chair and relaxed as much as he could, so his bond with Hogwarts would stop trying to comfort him.

"You're really bonded with it," Ron croaked. "I didn't know that."

Harry opened one eye to smile at him. It astonished him that he still had a smile in him, after the betrayal the article represented, but if he could, it would be for someone like Ron. "I told you that."

"Yeah, but it's different seeing it," Ron said, and finally took the paper away from him. "What did the bastards do this time?"

Harry swallowed a little. "Pulled those records from the time I went to that Mind-Healer after the war," he said. It was difficult to talk. He had said things to Mind-Healer Yarrow that could ruin him, for more than just being judged honest. He sounded _mental _in a lot of those things. He sounded like he wanted to die, like he wished the war had killed him, like he hated everyone in the wizarding world.

Yarrow had told him that was normal at the time, just part of the process of coping with the intense emotions the war had stirred up in him.

Harry's eye fell on the front page of the paper again, and the earnest photograph of Yarrow they'd found for it.

_Now they want everyone to think of me that way. Mental. Suicidal. Dark. Insane._

Harry stood up from the chair before he consciously thought about doing so, but this time, his mind felt crystal clear. He wasn't going to do that. He _wouldn't let them. _He was going to start _opening Hogwarts right now._

"They'll think—how did they get confidential records?" Ron was standing there, looking so lost that Harry couldn't help reaching out and gripping his hand, squeezing silently.

"Yarrow might have volunteered them," Harry said. "Someone might have found out he was my Mind-Healer and bribed him. Or maybe someone broke into hospital and stole them, and Yarrow and the Mind-Healers are even trying to soften the blow." He shrugged and turned his back. He had to admit that his impression of Mind-Healer Yarrow hadn't been someone who would betray secrets, or Harry would never have confessed so many of his own in the first place. But then, Mind-Healers had masks of their own, ways that they could conceal their own emotions so as to get emotions out of their patients. "What matters is that they want me to cower and flinch, or maybe try to reconcile with them."

"What are you going to do instead?" Ron had put down the _Prophet _and was looking at him in interest.

Harry smiled and bowed back a little, glad that Ron knew him well enough to realize Harry wasn't about to curl up and crumple under the blow. "Well, I thought maybe I would put out a call for professors to interview," he said. "And I would invite any students who want to move into the towers and their House common rooms to come back."

Ron blinked. "You think that's going to be enough? I mean, you think that enough people are going to come, because they won't be afraid of you?"

"Some people are desperate enough for jobs, they'll jump at the announcement that they could be a professor," Harry said briskly. For some reason, he thought he would hold off on mentioning that Malfoy had promised to look for knowledgeable pure-bloods until such time as he actually produced any. "And there are people who will always trust me no matter what. Some who will be influenced by that interview I gave Spivak. Maybe even seventeen-year-olds who think of it as a lark and an adventure to go to a school run by a Dark Lord, and their parents can't stop them since they're of age. Who knows who'll turn up?"

Ron frowned a little at him. "I just hope you aren't disappointed if no one turns up."

Harry rolled his eyes back. "Of course I'll be disappointed. I won't promise anything about controlling my emotional reactions. The _really _important thing is that I do what I can. And I'm going to show them that they can't control me."

"Them?"

"Tillipop and all the rest who want to do that, through the Ministry," Harry said. "Come _on_," he added, when Ron chewed his lip and looked at him. "They released confidential records to the papers, and you still believe there's no conspiracy?"

Ron suddenly snorted, following it with a grin. "Not a _conspiracy_," he said. "Just a group of people who are openly out to get you."

Harry clapped him on the back and said, "That's the spirit. Now, help me write some of these owls."

* * *

"_Draco!_"

Draco took the paper from Pansy, wondering why other people always got to it and saw the articles and interviews before he did. He shook his head in wonder at the photograph of Tillipop and the words below that, about Potter's Mind-Healer and the secrets that had come out.

"He's just destroyed himself," he murmured.

Pansy nodded emphatically, so that Draco could see her hair flapping over the top of the paper. "That's what I _told _you. Potter destroyed himself by giving that interview and forcing the Ministry to retaliate by pulling out his mental history."

"No," Draco said, and turned the paper around so she could see the photograph of Tillipop. "I mean that he's destroyed himself by releasing Potter's history."

Pansy stared at him. "Draco, Potter is _mental_."

"No," Draco said. "No, I don't think so." He would have sensed it when he met with Potter, if declaring himself Dark Lord was the act of a man on the edge of sanity. Instead, Draco thought, it was the Ministry that had _exasperated _him until that point, but this was—Potter was going to _obliterate _them.

"Draco?" Pansy asked warily. "Why are you smiling like that?"

"It would be too complicated to explain," Draco said, and put the paper down briskly, while reaching for more dinner. "Suffice it to say that I don't think I need to break off my alliance with Potter. Now, did Rosenthal tell you how fast those rumors about Tillipop are spreading?"


	11. Foolproof Strategies

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eleven—Foolproof Strategies_

"Malfoy!"

Draco twitched and turned around, thoroughly distracted from the speech he'd been preparing. He felt his lips compress when he realized that Potter's head was floating in the flames. He wanted to ask how Potter had managed to open the Floo when Draco had never given him permission to call, but then remembered that Potter had walked through the wards around the Manor. He sighed.

"What?" he asked, leaning back and tapping his fingers on the table. "You might call me Draco, you know, now that we're allies. And I'm a busy man."

"You looked like you were involved with a lot of paper to me," Potter retorted. "And I want your advice about some of the pure-bloods that you said had some knowledge and could teach at Hogwarts."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "I haven't thought much about that, although my adviser has found an adviser for you. What's the hurry?"

"I'm going to open Hogwarts soon," Potter said, and his face looked skull-like and feral through the flames. "They don't want me to do that, they want everyone to panic and run the other way in fear of the nasty Dark Lord, so I'm going to show them that _that _won't happen, and I need professors."

Draco blinked another moment. Then he said, "If this is your response to Minister Tillipop's article, then I can think of other moves that would benefit you more."

Potter had an impressive way of flaring his nostrils like a charging boar when he wanted to, Draco discovered a minute later. "But I don't want to do something that benefits me," Potter said, in a voice he probably thought was reasonable. "I want to do something that benefits Hogwarts, and the children who should learn other things than loyalty to the Ministry. Tillipop is undermining himself nicely right now. He doesn't need my help."

Draco slammed his hand down on his table, reacting before he thought about it. Well, Potter did bring out his impulsive side, and he knew that Pansy and Rosenthal would approve of what he was about to say, if no one else did. "Then our alliance is at an end."

Potter's cheeks flushed a little, visible even through the green color of the flames. "What? Why?"

"Because I don't accept allies who refuse to take responsibility for themselves," Draco said evenly, watching Potter. "They're far too reckless. They're likely to end up costing their allies as well as designing their own downfall. And if they think there's something _pure _about losing battles and making sacrifices, then they're doubly dangerous. I thought you were past that stage in your life, Potter. If you're not, this is farewell."

Potter lowered his head a little and thought. Draco had to admit that impressed him, because it was so much the opposite of what he had _assumed _Potter would do when Draco made his declaration. So he waited, and a second later, Potter raised hesitant eyes back to his face.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I realize now what it sounded like. And—this is going to take longer than I thought. Can I come through?"

_At least he asked permission this time, _Draco thought, half-decided to say it aloud, and pushed the decision back again when he saw the imploring way Potter looked at him. "Yes," he said, and leaned back in his chair to watch Harry Potter emerge from his Floo.

He stumbled getting out of the hearth. Of course he did. Draco rolled his eyes and locked his hands behind his head.

"You need to tell me why I should listen to you," he told Potter, who had tilted his head back as if trying to make out all the gems in the clock above the fireplace.

That got him what he wanted, Potter's attention that was deep enough to make him feel like he was sitting in velvet. A second later, Potter nodded and walked over to sit down in the chair opposite Draco.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, which made Draco half-close his eyes. He didn't want to be saddled with an ally that apologized all the time, either. A moment later, Potter seemed to pick up on that, and he clucked his tongue sharply at himself. "I should stop saying that, right?"

"Yes," Draco said simply, and waited.

"Fine." Potter nodded once more, gripped his own elbows as if that would help him, and launched himself. "It's like this. I know the Ministry wants nothing more than to stop me. I want to show them they _can't. _And I took over Hogwarts in the first place so that it would stay free of the Ministry. Its independence is my independence. If it's open, then it's the best answer I can make to Tillipop's stupid tactic."

_Ah_. Draco leaned back in his chair and wished, for a second, that Pansy was here to hear this. She would at least have to admit the justification made sense, as Draco could also admit to himself it did.

But if she was here, Potter's attention would be divided between her and Draco, so on second thought Draco was just as glad she wasn't. He shook his head and said, "I can understand why you think that, Potter, but as a matter of fact, you're wrong."

Potter's eyes shot to him and fastened on him like bats' claws. When he smiled, it could have cut iron. "Mind explaining why?"

"Because it can't end there," Draco said. "You can't say that your influence just ends and begins with Hogwarts and that's it. You've already given interviews that indicate otherwise."

"I did _not_," Potter snapped, leaning forwards. "I know what I said, and I know the way Spivak took it, but it's something I really believe. The Ministry either wants me dead or insane. They're taking the simpler course first."

"You misunderstand me." Draco put his fist under his chin and wondered for a moment if this was the way his father had felt, engaged in planning strategies for _the_ Dark Lord. Perhaps not. _He _had been insane, and Draco continued to believe that Potter was not. "I mean that you can't say that you don't care about anything except Hogwarts. Your interviews show that you care about the political situation in the wizarding world and the way the Ministry thinks about threats."

"Only because they're threatening _Hogwarts_," Potter insisted.

"If that was true, you wouldn't have declared yourself Dark Lord," Draco said quietly.

Potter stared at him, and for a moment, a golden halo of magic seemed to surround him, sparks that orbited his face. Draco ignored the heavy pressure that settled on the back of his neck. Yes, yes, Potter commanded magic that could kill him. But once Draco had got used to that fact, it ceased to be interesting. He wanted to move on and think about something else now.

"You think I wanted this?" Potter said. "That I had, what, some subconscious motive to become the next Voldemort?"

Draco clamped his hands on the chair arms so he wouldn't flinch. Potter would take that as a sign of weakness right now, and he might be the one to declare the end of their alliance. "No," he said. "But you know that Dark Lord is a more wide-ranging title than Headmaster. Dumbledore engaged in lots of political acts, but a lot of them were to save the school, and everyone always believed that was his primary motive because he was content to call himself Headmaster. When he did something in the Ministry, he was usually wearing some other hat. But you—you picked up the iron crown, if you'll forgive me for naming it that way, instantly. You went for the most powerful weapon that you had. You shouldn't be surprised the Ministry is arming for war."

Potter half-bowed his head. This time, Draco had no idea what he was thinking. He suspected the best thing he could do right now was to sit still and let his words work their way through Potter's head.

* * *

Harry grimaced. Yes, he had thought that the title of Dark Lord would make them leave him and Hogwarts alone at first, but that illusion hadn't lasted long. And he ought to have known better, when he'd seen the way the Ministry behaved in the second war with Voldemort and he'd spent four years there, trainee and Auror.

So. Fine. He was the Dark Lord. What would that mean?

_I have people to protect. I have goals I want to accomplish. _

But more than that? He already knew it meant the end of his being an Auror. What else could it mean?

Harry took a deep breath and looked up at Malfoy. He was waiting for Harry, sitting silent and sober, the way Harry had never thought he could when they were kids.

Then again, he had never actually pictured himself sitting opposite from Malfoy in a serious strategy meeting, either.

"I want to focus on the _Lord_ part, maybe, and not think so much about the Dark for right now," Harry began slowly. "And that means protecting people, and accomplishing my goals, and—and treating an assault on my allies or the people I'm protecting like it's an assault on me. Keeping my word, and not breaking it."

Malfoy looked as though Harry had come up to him and punched him. His mouth was hanging open, his breathing short and sharp and stifled. Harry watched him and wondered if he had introduced too many changes all at once for Malfoy. Maybe he should have spoken in smaller words and helped him along with many excuses about why being compassionate and responsible was a good thing for their alliance.

But, a minute later, Harry felt stupid. No, Malfoy was the one who had said that Harry had to think about being responsible for himself and his allies, right? That meant he would welcome Harry stepping up and considering himself a good Lord. Or at least thinking about what the title meant, Harry decided. Harry lifted up his head.

"Well?" he demanded of Malfoy, who was still silent. "Do you think that's a good plan, or is this the part where you threaten to abandon me again?"

Malfoy shook his head and held up a hand. Harry understood what that meant. He fell silent himself. Malfoy needed the time to consider? Fine. Harry understood that. He just hoped that Malfoy would speak sometime in the next century.

Malfoy finally cleared his throat and croaked out delicately, "I don't—I think it's a good plan, Potter, plenty good enough. I hadn't expected you to plunge straight from reckless disregard into deciding that _this _was the right thing to do, but I can accept it. I just—was surprised, that's all."

Harry settled back and examined him in silence, then nodded shortly. "Fine. Then you understand why I still want to know about any pure-blood professors that you've found. I have to take care of the students in Hogwarts and open the school again as soon as possible. To prove something to the Ministry, and to show that I take care of them the way I've promised."

Malfoy bowed his head for a second and thought. Harry hoped he was coming up with a list of names. He glanced at the table covered with parchment, but couldn't make out anything that looked a list there.

"Listen," Malfoy said quietly. "I know something that may help."

"Yeah?" Harry faced him again. "If you don't have names of professors, I'll take that adviser you were talking about."

Malfoy lifted his head. "Rosenthal is going to _kill_ me for this," Harry heard him mutter, and Harry would have asked him who Rosenthal was, except he knew from the articles over the last few days that she advised Malfoy on his public campaign. Malfoy made a little wiping motion at his forehead, and continued. "I think—I think it's time to become public about our alliance."

Harry blinked. "If it'll put you in danger, then I don't want to."

Malfoy paused and stared at him again. Harry wondered why perfectly innocent words that anyone could utter if they just _tried _had that effect on so many people. He sighed and said, "What?"

* * *

_I didn't know that he had even that much caring for me._

Now that he thought about it, though, Draco supposed that he should have. Potter wasn't the political opponent a true Slytherin would have been, but neither was he someone who had all his schoolboy prejudices intact, or he couldn't have worked with Draco in the first place. And if Potter meant what he said, about being a Lord who protected his subjects from danger as best he could…

Draco might be one of them.

His face turned hot with what he knew was excitement rather than embarrassment, although God knew how Potter was interpreting it. Draco cleared his throat and said, "I think you—misunderstand me. We shouldn't come out as people working closely. Rather, I'll make it clear that I don't fear you, that I'm probably the only person who could be Minister and not fear you. I'll spread the propaganda that _someone _has to deal with the Dark Lord who threatens the wizarding world, and better someone who could be in charge of the Ministry soon. And then we can start appearing together."

"As reluctant allies, not close ones," Potter said, watching him now with a calmer, deeper expression than Draco had seen him wear so far.

Draco nodded. "Exactly. There will be a lot of people who will see it as a ploy for the Minister's seat, which of course it is. But since I'm already running, and since Minister Tillipop just committed political suicide by releasing your records—"

"That would be the problem with your plan," Potter interrupted, his face sharpening again. "I don't think he did that. He's convinced more people that I'm mental than ever. Why would that destroy him?"

Draco clucked his tongue. "Think about it, Potter. Sure, there will probably be a reaction against you as the _first _reaction. But what happens once other people, especially Ministry officials, start thinking about the secrets they've confided in their own Mind-Healers? Tillipop's released a dangerous weapon. Now everyone has to worry about looking mental, or paying enormous bribes to keep their secrets safe."

Potter's face clearly slowly. "I wasn't thinking, I reckon," he muttered. "I just thought that, since it was me, they would go along with it the way they did when the _Prophet _declared me mental in fifth year. No one else seemed worried that they'd be called a Dark wizard or a liar for claiming Voldemort was back. Because I'm different from other people."

Draco nodded. "But this isn't the war, and Tillipop's done something desperate that he shouldn't have, because he fears your popularity. It's your popularity that we're going to take advantage of."

"While also presenting this image of me as the threatening Dark Lord?" Potter raised his eyebrows skeptically.

Draco had to smile. "There's no reason that we can't use two contradictory impressions, is there? Given that most _Prophet _readers seem to forget what's printed there from one day to the next."

Potter snorted. "I thought we were trying to appeal to the slightly _smarter _people."

"True enough." Draco hesitated one more time, and then continued. "We'll present you as the dangerous new Dark Lord when I'm treating with you, but you can give more interviews, too, like the one you gave to Spivak. There's going to be people brave enough to come, especially once we manage to establish you as the source of a _potential _threat. But a Dark Lord who's willing to negotiate."

Potter nodded slowly as he thought that over. "All right. You make me look sane, I'll make you look brave."

"And respected," Draco had to add. That was one of the reasons he had taken up the run for Minister in the first place, although a minor one. "No one else can fulfill the role that I can. No one else would _dare_."

Potter smiled and looked right back at him. "No, they wouldn't."

Draco licked his lips. His mouth was crawling with saliva, and he wanted to reach out and touch Potter's face, the lips those words had come from.

_And you're thinking about things that you shouldn't, at least not until your alliance is well-established and the election is secure, _murmured a voice in the back of his head.

Draco blinked and jerked his head back. Right. First things first. "Fine. Let me introduce you to your adviser."

Potter blinked. "They'd be willing to come over here at this time of the afternoon?"

"I think I can safely say that Briseis Ladon is willing to do _anything _for some prestige," Draco said dryly. He registered the look on Potter's face, and added, "Don't worry. She will do the work that's set in front of her, especially once we explain the strategy we want. It's just that she wouldn't want to work for someone who was little-known. She'd want them to be popular as soon as possible."

Potter nodded. "Okay." He waited to speak again until Draco had stood up and started to advance towards the fireplace. "And, Malfoy?"

Draco cocked his head, looking back.

Potter's face was entirely sober as he tilted his head back to meet Draco's eyes. "Thank you."

Draco felt the wave of heat sweep over him again, but once more it was excitement, not embarrassment, and that made it easier to nod, say, "You're welcome," and face the hearth with the feeling that fire burned beneath the surface of his skin.

This was going to be _fun_.


	12. A Sense of the Dramatic

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twelve—A Sense of the Dramatic_

"Duels are still technically legal, you know. If fought in public on ground that's been carefully cleared of innocent victims."

Harry fought the urge to bury his head in his hands. "Yes, I know, Miss Ladon," he said, because if he could continue using the formal title instead of the first name she'd urged him to call her, then he might conquer the impulse to cuff her around the ear. "But I don't want to duel the Minister."

"Why not? He's already done something far worse than using a few curses to hurt you." Briseis leaned forwards across the table. "You could suffer from him releasing your mental history, and not only because it's always humiliating to have that happen. An enemy could use those secrets against you, now."

Harry shook his head. "So far, we've kept this to the realm of newspaper articles," he said. "Interviews."

Briseis looked around the Headmaster's office, and then back to him. "I know that you used the school to force people to leave you alone, and you branded an attempted murderer's face," she said, sounding obscurely disappointed. "Why are you so eager to avoid letting Tillipop face the natural consequences of his actions?"

Harry grimaced. "If I'm the one that actually escalates the situation into a war, then I'll be branded, to use your word, as the villain in the eyes of the public."

Briseis shook her head. She had long pale hair that made Harry think she was related to the Malfoys somehow, but she kept hers flying around her as if she saw no reason to tie it back. "Some of them already think of you that way. And what matters in a situation like this is _practicality_, making sure that you can defend yourself and defend others, not looking good to posterity. Posterity makes its own mind up, anyway, and sometimes what they choose makes no sense to those of us alive at the time." She leaned forwards persuasively. "Come on, Mr. Potter. Mr. Malfoy told me that you were going to defend the people who belonged to you, that you would try to be a _true _Lord. Do you really think that it's not going to come down to war in the end?"

Harry got up from behind his desk and paced. He could feel the subtle vibrations that ran through the floor under his feet as Hogwarts reached out to calm him, to touch him, to soothe him. Briseis tilted her head back to watch him, eyes calm and bright.

"No," Harry admitted at last, when he'd made a circuit of the room so many times that he'd expected Briseis to explode before now. _Not related to Malfoy, then, if she can keep quiet that long. _He dropped into his chair with a heavy sigh. "I know it will. But—we should keep it peaceful for as long as we can."

"Why?" Briseis sounded as baffled as if he'd said that he was going to give up his wand and go to live among Muggles.

"Because of those innocent bystanders you were talking about," Harry said, meeting her eyes. "A legal duel has to have the area cleared. But you can't do that in a war. Someone will get hurt. The longer we can put it off, the fewer people that is."

"You don't believe that, either." Briseis folded a hand on her knee. She wore dark purple robes with golden braid that Harry had seen Malfoy wrinkle his nose at when she'd come into the drawing room of Malfoy Manor to meet with Harry. Malfoy probably thought them vulgar. Harry didn't know what he thought about them, and he had to admit that Briseis probably didn't give a shit. "And anyway, that's the kind of war Voldemort fought. No reason that you shouldn't start this next one on a different footing, when you have access to all the magic you bragged to Mr. Malfoy about."

Harry stared at her, mouth slightly open. Briseis brought her hand down on the desk. "Oh, come on. You were there when he told me about it. Of course I know you're powerful."

"No," Harry said. "You said Voldemort's name without flinching."

Briseis gave him a very small smile. "A wise man once told me that you give a name power by fearing it," she said, her eyes flicking to the newest of the portraits behind Harry on the wall. "And I refuse to let a _name, _a sound that you produce with your lips and your tongue and that dies as soon as you say it, have power over me."

Harry blinked. "That's such a _Slytherin _justification."

"Of course it is," Briseis said. "And I was also there when you said that you had a fair proportion of Slytherin in you. Was that real? Or just something else to brag about?" She leaned forwards and fluttered her eyelashes at Harry.

Harry snorted. "I'm not sure that's something I would _brag _about."

Briseis sat back, grinning. "Good. You can have some spirit when you want to." Then the smile vanished off her face in the next instant. Harry was sure that was another political trick, maybe picked up from Dumbledore as well, but it was an effective one. "That's what you need to win this war, Mr. Potter. Spirit. You can't just go along and hope the Ministry is the one to start violence first. Why would you even _want _that? It might mean that someone you've promised to protect gets hurt or killed. Strike first, and you're the one who controls the extent of the violence."

Harry snorted a little. "Voldemort thought that too, and it got him killed."

Briseis shrugged. "His goals were different than yours. He was fighting an offensive war, not a defensive one." She looked around the office. "But you have your portion of ground to defend, and you would go to the death to defend it, if you had to. I know you already went to your death once to keep the people you loved safe."

Harry shook his head a little, not to deny the suggestion but to dismiss the event. He didn't like to think about it much, especially now that he had to live to defend things. It made what he had done seem a little strange. "Right. But to think I can control the war if I strike first is ridiculous. That battle, maybe. Not the war."

"Why not?" Briseis leaned back, and her eyes shone at him. "There's another difference between you and the other Dark Lords. Voldemort fought with secrecy and terror. He wanted to kill Muggles, but he wanted some wizards alive, too, to bend the knee to him. And Grindelwald wanted land to rule. He didn't even care if he came to the attention of Muggles, or helped them. He wanted power. You don't want either."

Harry narrowed his eyes. It was true enough. He had no intention of pulling Muggles into this, and he would do everything openly. Neither of those things pointed the way to a strategy. "Explain what you mean."

"I think," Briseis said, "that you have a better chance of controlling the war than either of them did, because you can fight with pure power. And you have no one of comparable power alive to oppose you, the way Dumbledore was for Grindelwald, and you have no one fated to defeat you." She paused abruptly and began to rifle through the stack of parchment she had carried into the office and then laid down next to her so that she could spend more time talking with her hands. "At least, I think so. I'll have to check on that. The Ministry doesn't allow people to hear the prophecies, not now that they've had to change the whole design of that part of the Department of Mysteries, but it's a matter of public record who they're about."

Harry shook his head a little. "I thought—"

"You made threats about your level of power," Briseis said, snapping her head up to look at him. "Threats _and _statements. That means that you should be prepared to back them up. Or was that a bluff only? If it was, then the whole of our strategy is going to have to change." She pushed her hair out of her eyes, frowning at him.

"No, it's real," Harry said, and stretched his hands out to feel the foundations of Hogwarts stretching with him. "But I don't want to kill people, and showy illusions can only impress them for so long."

Briseis smiled. "Is that all you can think of to do with your magic? I can think of more."

* * *

"Mr. Malfoy!" Rita Skeeter shouted, trotting across the Manor gardens towards him. She was an hour in advance of the crowd, but Draco had expected that. "Is it true that you think peace and not war is the answer for the Ministry's negotiations with Dark Lord Potter?"

Draco smiled at Skeeter and folded his arms neatly on the table that Rosenthal had set up so he could sit in comfort while he discussed the questions Skeeter and the others would ask him with a "discreet group of friends." "Don't your words contradict each other?" he said. Potter had never known the proper way to handle Skeeter. She appreciated someone who could fence with her, and Draco's wit hadn't dulled since his Hogwarts days, when he had first worked with her. "You can't have negotiations without a war."

"Of course you can," Skeeter said, and leaned across the table towards him. Draco raised his eyebrows a little. She _really _wanted this story, then. "You can have negotiations that are aimed at staving off the _threat _of war. But do you really want peace? Do you think you can hold a Dark Lord at bay for long?"

Draco leaned forwards and assumed a confidential tone. Of course, he knew anything he said would end up in the _Prophet_, and probably distorted, too. The key was to convince Skeeter that his words were too important and fascinating to twist, that printing the truth would get a greater reaction. "Well, you have to remember Dark Lord Potter isn't like other Dark Lords." The title combined with Potter's name still made him want to laugh, but from the way Skeeter's face paled a little, she was impressed, the way she should be. "He was part of the ordinary wizarding community until relatively recently. He had all the power and the fame he could want, so he didn't declare himself a Dark Lord to attain more of that."

"Well, I don't know." Skeeter played with her quill. "He hasn't been in the news as much in the last year."

Draco looked at her directly. "And do you think the lack of privacy being in the news brought him is something he _mourns_?"

Skeeter sighed. She would do that when no one else was there to notice and overhear her, then. Good. Draco had wondered. "No. Of course not. But I do think that perhaps he hasn't considered the full ramifications of his actions."

Draco sniffed. "Does he ever?"

"Malfoy!"

Draco was expecting it, and still he almost rose from behind the table. Skeeter spun around and exchanged her quill for her wand so fast that Draco wondered if those rumors about her being a duelist in private were true.

Potter stood at the end of Draco's gardens, his arms folded and a thunderous frown brooding on his face. Of course, they had planned this, but Ladon must have talked him into more illusions than Draco originally had. All around him whirled his own miniature thunderstorm, the lightning bolts dancing from tiny dark clouds and striking the ground hard enough to make divots of grass spin into the air.

Then Draco smelled the electric charge, and blinked. That thunderstorm was real.

He rose to his feet, feeling as though one of the bolts had come to touch him, and bowed in Potter's direction. This was already straying away from the careful script they'd discussed last night. He hoped Potter retained enough of the words, if not the actions, to let Draco carry this through as he needed to. "Dark Lord Potter. May I inquire why I have the honor of your presence at my home?"

Skeeter's eyes were darting back and forth between them, and Draco could hear her breath growing raspy. She knew as well as Draco did that the storm around Potter was no illusion. She must want her quill more than she wanted her wand, if the way her fingers twitched was any indication.

Potter gave Skeeter a look of magnificent derision, and then focused on Draco. Draco knew he was smarter than Pansy gave him credit for, or his tongue would have fallen out of his mouth as he panted for Potter, for the effect that Potter's attention had on him. He was glad he stood behind the table, for several reasons.

"You claim that you can negotiate with me?" Potter drawled. Draco swallowed. If this had been serious, he would have been convinced by that drawl. From her silent, intent look, Skeeter certainly was. "Why? What makes you so sure that _you_, little coward that you were during the war, have the bravery to stand up to me?" He spread his arms.

The storm whirled away from him, the lightning striking wildly at the grass, killing several flowers and blackening a long, jagged trail that led towards the Manor. Draco winced privately and hoped Potter wouldn't mind a contribution of Galleons to repair the damage later.

If he _did _mind, it wasn't like Draco could really make him pay for it.

"It's because I know you," Draco said, and took a step forwards, around the table this time. He had to seem as if he'd forgotten Skeeter, and right now, she was too much in his line of sight. He stood there with his hands spread, but low at his sides, so there was no chance of him seeming threatening. "I know things about you that all of them have forgotten."

Potter rolled his eyes and sneered. "Like what? That I can fly well? That I beat you at each and every Quidditch game we shared?" His eyes locked on Draco's, and yes, he could manage a glare hard enough to knock Draco down—if he had been anyone but Potter's ally. Draco enjoyed the image in his head of what effect that glare would have on Minister Tillipop. "You can't tell them anything if I choose to shut your mouth."

He extended his hand and wriggled his fingers, and Draco almost choked when he felt the skin of his lips start creeping upwards over his mouth. That hadn't been _anything _they agreed on.

But they had an audience, no matter how intensely Draco was pretending he had forgotten her, and so he couldn't yell at Potter. He extended his hands in front of him this time and said, trying to ignore the blur in his words, "I mean that I know you're fundamentally a good person. And not mental, the way the Minister claims. And you admire courage, and you won't injure anyone who comes to you in good faith."

Potter gave him a look of disbelief so patent that Draco wondered if he was a better actor than Draco had thought he was, or if Ladon had coached him into it. Or maybe he was surprised Draco could speak those words of praise with a straight face.

At least Draco's mouth stopped attempting to sew itself shut, and Potter stepped up to Draco. "Let me look into your eyes," he snapped. "I can read someone's soul through their eyes."

"You mean Legilimency?" Draco asked, trying not to squeak as Potter's fingers settled on his jaw. This was something they had discussed and acted out before, thank Merlin, but he hadn't known how rough Potter's hand would be. He seemed to think he had to be strong in front of Skeeter, and had no idea how strong he actually was.

"Of course not," Potter said, and gave Draco a dark grin. "I'm pants at that, always was. I'm talking about magic that can let me see your _soul_."

_That line's going in the Prophet tomorrow, _Draco judged, as Potter leaned in and stared into his eyes from less than a centimeter away. Draco could feel his lashes fluttering and jerking. He hoped his eyes didn't water. The last thing he wanted was for Skeeter to suggest he was afraid.

The last thing he _felt _was afraid.

Abruptly, Potter dropped Draco's chin, moving away. "You're sincere," he whispered, and the heavy wonder in his voice made Draco wonder if magic really existed that could read someone's soul, and Potter could use it. Then he pushed the thought away. There had to be limits to even Potter's power.

_Maybe._

"You're an ally." Potter looked at him unblinking, and then broke into a smile so jubilant Draco responded before he could stop himself, or remember whether they'd rehearsed this. "Thank you. _Thank _you, for not shutting me out of the wizarding world because I did what I thought was right."

He extended his hands and bowed his head, and the stormclouds bore up, spinning around him, raining furiously. Where the rain fell, the jagged scar Potter had left in the grass vanished, and the flowers revived. They were different flowers now, though, brilliant scarlet blossoms with a silver center—House colors mingled, Draco realized, grasping it with a little shock a breath after Skeeter did, to judge from her sigh.

Then Potter vanished himself, and Skeeter stood there staring at Draco for a second before blurting, "I have to go."

Draco didn't blame her for breaking into a run as she headed frantically for the front gates of the Manor. He had the same impulse leaping up and down, banging in his heart.

Or maybe only the impulse to reach out and touch something no longer there.


	13. A Conversation Skeeter Would Love to Hea

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirteen—A Conversation Skeeter Would Love To Hear_

"Did you believe the look on her _face_?" Potter collapsed laughing onto the chair in front of Draco, grabbing the glass of champagne that Draco offered him as casually as though taking it from a house-elf, and downing half of it at once. Draco didn't even have the satisfaction of watching him choke on bubbles. Apparently that didn't happen to the Great Dark Lord Harry Potter. "And the way she almost broke a shoe running out of here?" Potter grinned, and then looked up at Draco. "You played your part well, Malfoy. My compliments."

Draco managed to move his mouth a little and make his stiff smile more open. "So did you. Not the part we agreed upon, of course." He moved over to take the chair opposite Potter. They were in the same room where he had introduced Potter to Briseis Ladon, a small, compact one whose most endearing decoration was the thin green stripe running at head height around the white walls. Draco knew all sorts of tales about what it was supposedly used for. His father had told him most, but others had occurred to Draco as he played here when he was a child.

"I know, I changed it," Potter said, and held up a hand as though to stem back a flood of scolding, although Draco hadn't known he looked like he was about to unleash the scolding. "But I did it because Ladon advised me to, I swear!"

Draco smiled. "Really. What did she tell you?" _To take me completely off-guard and show up with real magic? _That was the part that made Draco want to shatter something.

Well, no, he had to admit to himself a moment later, as Potter gazed at him and sipped more champagne. Seeing Potter's magic blazing out like that, the way it always should have been, was exciting, and Draco could have bathed in it and walked away satisfied. What made his heart jump was that Potter seemed not to have the reaction to Draco that Draco had to him, and _that _made him want to shatter skulls.

Potter's skull, for preference. Draco had to work to recall his parents' words about how it was wasteful to kill allies.

Potter cocked his head, studying him. "I don't know what you want me to say," he finally admitted. "What matters is—I mean, it worked, didn't it? And you seemed happy enough at the time."

From someone like Blaise, Draco would have had to take that as mockery of the worship he knew had glowed in his eyes. But from Potter, it was possible—

Possible Potter had no idea that Draco's reaction existed. Possible his laughter had just been exuberance, the way it sounded, and he had thought Draco would want to join him in celebration of a job well-done, at least when it came to fooling Skeeter.

Draco closed his eyes, then opened them. "Of course," he agreed easily. "I was happy. I only wondered whether you were telling the truth about magic that could see the soul."

Potter snorted and shook his head. "That was one of Ladon's ideas. Clever, wasn't it? Now Skeeter will be absolutely _entranced _with the notion that I trust you, and she'll probably let more rumors slip in front of you to get a reaction." He grinned again and swallowed some more champagne. "After all, nothing like trying to turn a loyal ally against a Dark Lord for more stories."

"I think there are other stories she might want to write instead," Draco said. Partially, he didn't think Skeeter would react like Potter was suggesting, but more than that, he wanted to test something out. Why not? They were in private, and no one else could hear them. And Draco did trust Potter in a weird way. He trusted his honor, perhaps. Potter might gape at him, but he wouldn't gossip. "Such as the story of the way I was staring up into your eyes."

Potter blinked at him. "I didn't give you a lot of choice about that, did I? I grabbed your face."

_Yes, and my cheek still stings. _But Draco didn't say that, because Potter would just apologize for being rough, and Draco didn't want to listen to apologies right now. He arranged his hands in his lap and tried to arrange his face, likewise, in a patient smile. "What I meant was, did you wonder why I was staring at you?"

"You didn't anticipate what I was going to do next." Potter was fidgeting with his glass now, staring into the bubbles as if they were fascinating and refusing to meet Draco's eyes. "That's plain enough. Since I didn't tell you. I should apologize for that, though, right?" He stood up and put the glass down on a sleek table standing nearby, moving towards the fireplace. "Sorry."

Draco stood. "You're running away," he said.

That made Potter spin around and snarl. Draco watched the table do a little dance, and tensed for a second. If Potter was bonding to the Manor…

But then Potter made a sharp gesture, and the table fell still. No, it had been perfectly ordinary wandless magic, Draco thought, tilting his head back to catch Potter's eyes. His heart pumped and pounded and skittered. It was nearly as intense as it had been in the garden with Potter, despite the lack of touch.

_It's him. Whether or not he's touching me, whether or not we're trying to fool someone. He affects me without even trying._

Draco had dreamed about having a rival, a challenge. He had known he would defeat Tillipop, and the idea of someone he could not defeat—or not easily—made him want to sit up and applaud.

But he had not dreamed that he would meet someone who could disturb his soul with a simple movement of his hand, and yet not be disturbed back. Draco was willing to take a risk, to damage their alliance, if it meant he would bring Potter to acknowledge _him_, too. Otherwise, he would give up his independence and have to keep a constant watch on himself while Potter walked on in happy oblivion.

And Draco was determined that that would not happen. Potter's magic or not, they would be _equals._

"Running away?" Potter's voice was low, and he took a step towards Draco as though he was another table that Potter could make dance. Draco sneered at him a little. "From what? I told you sorry. That suggests I don't have any fear of apologizing to you, do I?"

"But you don't want to stay here and see the consequences of your apologies, either," Draco said.

That at least made some of the growing darkness slip away from Potter's eyes. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, shaking his head. "I apologized for handling you roughly, and that was the wrong thing to do. I told you what was Ladon's suggestion and what wasn't, and you want some—apology for that? I really have no idea what else I could apologize for."

Draco considered him again, and then shrugged and decided that he should move forwards. He was the one who had come this far down the road, and there was no Rosenthal here to advise him.

_And no Ladon for Potter, either._

That made him relax, the reminder that they were here alone. And if all else failed, Draco would admit he had been wrong and back off. Such simple tactics ought to keep him from thinking of Draco as weak.

"You apologized and tried to turn the conversation in a different direction," Draco said. "Wrong decision. That only means I'm going to notice how poor your excuses are, and continue pursuing what I wanted to talk about in the first place. Now. Did you wonder why I was staring into your eyes?"

"Because I left you no other decision about where to look." Potter looked as if he couldn't choose between punching or hexing Draco.

"Right," Draco said. "Of course. That has to be it. Not that my fascination with your magic is so great it was difficult to turn away from you."

That made Potter's hand fall back to his side again, and he blinked at Draco. "But…you probably know more than anyone else about what I can do," he said. "You didn't stare at me like that when you found out I was bonded to Hogwarts or even when I walked through the wards on your house. Why was it the storm that changed your mind? Should I have gone with illusions, the way I was going to? Do you think Skeeter bought it?"

Draco hissed at him. Potter looked like he wanted to punch him again. Draco rubbed his forehead, and imagined what Rosenthal would say to him, about how he shouldn't have moved the conversation in such an antagonistic direction if he wanted Potter's positive attention.

_On the other hand, I wouldn't have started it at all if she was here, because she would have cut my tongue out rather than let me get away with revealing a weakness._

"Listen, Potter," he said. "You _focused _on me. I never knew how addictive it was to be _focused _on by you. And when you told me that you had magic that could see into the soul, then I almost believed it, along with Skeeter."

"Yes, that was one of the better lies Ladon told me to tell, if it could even fool _you_." Potter's voice was clear and direct now, and he had a slight smile on his face, as though he had solved the puzzle. "I promise, it isn't true. So if you were only staring at me because you were terrified of what I would see in your soul, forget about it. The only incriminating thing I could tell anyone is that your eyes are really, really grey."

Oblivious or not, Draco wasn't about to let that go. He moved forwards, and Potter blinked at him again, inclining towards the fireplace while not actually moving back at all.

"So you think the color of my eyes is fascinating?" Draco slid a hand onto Potter's arm. It felt like anyone else's, through the cloth. He wondered if it was the intensity that had made Potter's skin feel warm before, or the magic, or his own imagination. Or maybe he had to be touching bare skin to make that kind of connection. "Really. What else?"

* * *

Harry stared at Malfoy some more, blinking. Then he said what he was thinking aloud. Ladon would have scolded him, and probably Malfoy too, but maybe that meant it would make Malfoy back off.

"Are you _flirting _with me?"

Malfoy parted his lips slightly, tongue darting out to lick them. He didn't take his hand off Harry's arm, though, and this close, Harry could see the greyness of his eyes again, and the faint shades of blue and black that whirled through them, like darker clouds in a stormy sky.

_I don't think that way. I'm not supposed to think that way. _Harry jerked his head back, his heart pounding with shock. He reached up to take Malfoy's hand off him. God knew that he could have fried his fingers and Malfoy would have jerked back, but Harry didn't want to use magic against someone he had just been proclaiming his ally.

"Yes," Malfoy said. "It took you long enough to notice."

Harry turned to face him, aware, in a way he didn't want to be, of the square shape that Malfoy's shoulders made against the air of the room, and the way he tilted his head up, and the warmth of his smile, flowing and dripping across his face like candlewax. "That's ridiculous," he said. "You have to—you'll have to marry someone to make a good Minister, and you can't marry the Dark Lord that you're pretending to ally with."

Malfoy laughed at him, and his breath was warm and why was Harry standing close enough to him to notice that? Because he was stupid, that was why, and hadn't expected this, and hadn't tried to move away. He tried now, but the mantle pressed up against his shoulders a second later, and he didn't have the Floo powder that would have made the fireplace an actual escape. Malfoy leaned in towards him, eyes so bright that Harry could have seen all the colors of the rainbow in them if he wanted. He gulped and stared at the floor instead.

"You're making excuses," Malfoy murmured. "It's true that I reacted more strongly to you than I expected. But it's a reaction, and it's something we must deal with. If we try to ignore it and continue our alliance, then someone else might notice it. I expect Skeeter to include veiled hints in the article she'll write."

"Oh, bollocks," Harry snapped. He wasn't much good at politics, but Ladon was, and she hadn't anticipated this. "She'll focus on the magic and the way that I attacked your garden at first and only decided I could trust you after I stared into your eyes."

"Exactly," Malfoy said, and reached up to take Harry's wrist, tracing burning fingers along it. He had a strange, expectant expression on his face, as though he thought Harry would leap straight into agreeing with him if he could just find the right words to explain it. "You spent a long time looking at me. It _did _things to me, Potter. I wanted you to know about it."

Harry swallowed. "What? You want me to apologize for—I don't know, getting you excited?" Even to him, the words sounded stupid, and he looked off to the side with his face flaming. What was he supposed to _do _in a situation like this? Everything was supposed to be easy and simple and happy, a war he could fight to make sure that not a lot of people died but the ones he wanted to protect stayed safe, and stupid Malfoy had to come along and make it all complicated.

"No," Malfoy said. "I want you to give me the chance to excite you back."

Harry peered at him warily. He was still standing too close, and he still had his hand on Harry's wrist, but he didn't look as though he would tackle Harry to the floor any time soon. Harry relaxed a little. Of course he wouldn't. Malfoy was too good a politician. Harry ought to have remembered that. Of _course _it was the truth. Malfoy had probably got upset that he was excited and Harry wasn't, so he wanted the chance to set the score straight. It was all about them being equals.

"Fine," Harry said. "Though I'm not a good kisser, so it'll probably make whatever you're feeling go out like a damp firework."

Malfoy laughed a little, and took Harry's chin in his fingers. Harry shivered absently. That _was _an unpleasantly intimate gesture, wasn't it? Maybe he couldn't blame Malfoy for being upset that Harry had decided to use it. "Then we're back to the status quo, and with you at my side, that is no bad place to be," Malfoy murmured, a moment before he kissed Harry.

Harry shuddered. Malfoy was probably more experienced than he was, because evil bastards who didn't care about the wizarding world always were, but it was still a warm kiss, and a pressing one, and one that would be hard to get away from by backing off. Where was he going to back off to? Wood pressed into his shoulders as he stiffened, and Malfoy was in front of him, sliding his hand up Harry's arm.

So Harry did the only thing he could. Malfoy wanted to be equal to him, did he? Harry slid an arm around the small of Malfoy's back and jerked him forwards, ignoring the way Malfoy gasped. That just gave Harry better access to his mouth, and specifically his tongue.

Harry went to work, the way he had when he was bonding to Hogwarts. He had to do something to save Hogwarts. And he was _damned _if he was going to look weak to anyone, in public or private, in front of an ally or not.

He kissed Malfoy like he meant it, or he tried to, and if he wasn't a very good liar then he wouldn't have been able to stare into Malfoy's eyes out there and act like he meant it. He kissed Malfoy hard enough to make him wince, and then stepped back and folded his arms and said, "See? It's just—"

Malfoy gazed at him.

_Well, shit. _Harry bumped back to reality, away from the fact that he had wanted to convince Malfoy he was just as good as him. Harry knew his lips were swollen, and his own tongue had been thoroughly licked, and he ran his tongue around his lips and then put it back inside his mouth when he saw the way Malfoy stared at it. His ears were red, and his hair was mussed. How had _that _happened? More than usual, anyway. He hadn't been aware that Malfoy had his hand up there.

"I found that very satisfying," Malfoy said, in the kind of low, coaxing tone that he'd used when he introduced Ladon to Harry. "Very satisfying indeed. I won't say it has to be part of our becoming allies, but it won't damage it."

Harry clenched his teeth hard enough to hurt. "Sure it will. No one really expects Dark Lords to have—I don't know, friends, lovers, but they'll expect you to have someone as the Minister. And—" He stopped. He was sounding like he wanted to date Malfoy, but he _didn't _want to. And if he wasn't good at politics, then he shouldn't expect to make political sense.

He made a disgusted little noise and turned to the fireplace.

Malfoy's hand caught his wrist. "Running away again?" he asked, in a dangerously pleasant voice, as dangerous as the touch on Harry's face.

"Yes," Harry said. "Because I don't _understand _this, and we might put your whole campaign and my whole war in danger because I'm acting stupidly." And he tossed Floo powder in the flames, and escaped.

Although not for long, if the way his mouth tingled was any indication.

* * *

Draco stood there with his fingers pressed to his lips, thinking, for long moments after Potter had disappeared.

He didn't want to put anything they worked for at risk, that was true. Becoming Minister was more important to him than sleeping with Potter.

But he thought there were ways to handle it. And if they mostly talked about this, _did _this, in private, then there was no reason to change their public personas. And no matter what, he would be equal to Potter. If he couldn't be equal in magic, this was a battlefield where their differences could cease to matter.

Draco licked his lips, and smiled.


	14. Planning and Strategy

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fourteen—Planning and Strategy_

"What did he _mean _by it?"

Harry turned around with an irritated little hiss when he realized Ladon hadn't answered him. Instead, she was sitting by the corner of the table where she had put her tea, staring into the distance and blinking. They were in a classroom that she was turning into her office, not the Headmistress's. Harry was getting a little tired of being there. Besides, he wanted to encourage McGonagall to move back in if he could.

"Briseis?" Harry added, because her motionlessness was starting to worry him.

She snapped back to reality and smiled at him. "I think he may have meant any number of things by kissing you," she said, leaning forwards. "But what _matters _is that he's created a wonderful opportunity for us."

Harry snorted. "Why? I told him that it might ruin his campaign and my war, and it might. If everyone gossips about how we're sleeping together, then no one's going to take us seriously."

Briseis shrugged. "You don't need to release it in public if you didn't want to. But it creates a bond of loyalty between you, especially since you said he was the one who moved first, and he's the one who's attracted by your magic." She turned back to the parchment lying beside her, where Harry had already seen some notes, and began to scribble away more energetically. "Yes, I think this will be _great_."

"Why?" Harry repeated warily. He had learned a lot about his allies already that made him wary. Move cautiously around Malfoy when he stared at Harry's lips; move cautiously around Briseis when she was enthusiastic.

"Because it will bond him more closely to you." Briseis tossed her hair back and smiled at him. "You have your friends, but not a lot of other relationships. Declaring yourself Dark Lord destroyed them. Not even the Headmistress trusts you much. Be careful around the Headmistress, my Lord," she added, turning back to the parchment. "She might want to regain control of the school, particularly if she thinks there's a chance that you'll destroy it otherwise."

"What?" Harry spluttered. "McGonagall wouldn't want to destroy me—and did you call me _my Lord? _Never do that again!"

"As my Lord commands." Briseis flattened one hand against her chest.

"Stop it!"

Briseis leaned forwards, and her face had gone serious as quickly as the dart of a hawk's wing across the sky. "No, _you _stop it," she said intensely. "This is a good thing for you. It'll keep Malfoy bound to you rather than working apart. I wondered how we were going to achieve that, but this is how, of course. And you'll have to get used to being addressed as 'my Lord.' You can't have a personal relationship with everyone who comes into your Court. There will be people who won't want it. You should get used to it now so you don't explode embarrassingly at some point in the future. My Lord."

Harry clenched his jaw. "No one called Voldemort that except his Death Eaters," he said over his shoulder as he came to a halt on the other side of the classroom, staring at an empty patch on the wall. It looked as though a tapestry had once hung here, long enough to leave a bare spot on the stone, but it was gone now. Even as he watched, the stones started to shift and wriggle, reaching out to comfort him. Harry held up a hand and absently caressed the base of the block nearest him. "I didn't think that anyone would do it to me."

"Arguably, I'm your Death Eater."

Harry turned around, his lip curling before he could stop himself.

Briseis laughed, probably at the look on his face—Harry didn't know what else would be funny—and shook her head. "Yes, you don't like that. But other people will say it. And other people will say there's nothing human about you, and someone will attack your friends, and more will declare you mental, the way the Minister tried to do. You have to stand up to them. This is a good thing. It'll keep Malfoy bound."

"I don't think there was that much chance of him deserting, not when he was the one who came to me with hopes of an alliance." Harry folded his arms and paced up and down. The stones beneath him promptly bumped each other, trying to touch the soles of his feet. Harry sighed and told them to calm down with a little twitch of his magic. He was all right. He didn't need constant comfort.

"It would depend," Briseis said, shrugging. "Insult him often enough and get in the way of his campaign, and he might break with you."

Harry bit his lip. "But he might do the same thing if something goes wrong in our relationship." And thinking he had any kind of relationship with Malfoy was _laughable. _

_I thought you were allies? _

Harry turned his back and crossed to the other side of the room, away from the desks that wanted to rest against him and vibrate like they were purring.

"That's true," Briseis said. "But I don't think it's as likely. He wants this. Insulting him by rejecting it—"

"How would rejecting it _insult _him?" Harry turned around and stared at her. "If anything, he ought to thank me. I'm saying that I know I'm not good enough for him. I'm making sure that me being an evil Dark Lord doesn't taint his campaign for Minister."

Briseis rested her hands on the desk behind her and cocked her head. "I don't know everything about you or Mr. Malfoy, but I know enough," she said. "It's one reason Rosenthal chose me for this position, since I'd have to work with both of you. And I know you rejected him once, and he hated it. You think that rejecting this relationship won't come across as an insult? How _can _you manage to forget about your own past?"

Harry felt as though someone had snapped him like a rubber band. "You know about that? But Malfoy wouldn't want you to. How do you know about that? It wasn't very important."

Briseis rolled her eyes. "Most of the time I'm actually glad that you're not more Slytherin, since it makes you more interesting and easier to work with," she said, standing upright and folding her arms. "But this is one of the times I wish you _were_. Rosenthal hopes to spend a good portion of her life as Mr. Malfoy's adviser. Of course she would find out everything she could. And in relation to you, nothing can be truly called unimportant."

Harry winced and turned his back, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't mean to do this," he whispered, his words more directed at someone who couldn't hear him than they were at Briseis. "I didn't mean to drag someone else into it."

"Oh, shut up."

And now Briseis was marching around in front of him, and Harry stared at her, wondering if she had forgotten that he could drop a ceiling on her head if he wanted to, or use the floor and the walls to push her out the door. But from the snap of her chin, she knew that. She just knew better than to think he would hurt her for no reason.

_Sometimes being a good Dark Lord isn't all it's cracked up to be, _Harry thought.

"You becoming a Dark Lord _affects _other people," Briseis said, snapping her hands together as though she was breaking a piece of wood between them. "And you just said that Mr. Malfoy initiated the alliance by coming to you and talking to you about what he wanted. So it's on him if it doesn't work out. He could have stayed away. Stop brooding and wake up and become more political."

Harry swallowed. "That's—loud," he said.

"It's also fair," Briseis said, leaning towards him. "Admit it, or I don't have to be your adviser anymore."

Harry grimaced. "Okay. I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I should have declared myself something else if I didn't want to, right?"

Briseis nodded. "I still think that we can run the war with less casualties than usual, because of your power," she said. "But you can't wish to change the world and then whine that you don't want to influence anyone." She studied him from the corner of her eye for a second, and then sniffed. "Look, if you really hate the thought of sleeping with Malfoy, you don't have to. You probably won't have all that much time to do it anyway when the campaign heats up and the Ministry starts moving against you seriously. But it's not a disaster."

Harry hauled his mind back on track. He shouldn't start worrying about things that hadn't happened yet, that was what Briseis was telling him, and that was fair. "Good. I was worried I'd ruined his campaign by kissing him back."

Briseis shook her head briskly again. "No. If that was true, he wouldn't have done it. He's more Slytherin—smarter—than that."

"Thank you for implying I'm not," Harry said, rolling his eyes, and then they went back to planning other things, while in the back of his mind, Harry wondered.

_Would he have backed off if it was clear that it would harm him? Or not? How much was he hurt by that first rejection? Can he get over it? _

_Great. Of all the people I could be worrying about as we move into this combined campaign and war, it's Malfoy._

* * *

Blaise toasted Draco with a faint smile, shaking his head. "I have to admit, Draco, this is _impressive. _I knew you were going to fool Skeeter, but I didn't think you would get this out of it."

Draco smiled a little and picked up the newspaper. The photograph at the top was the one of Potter holding his chin while Draco stared into his eyes, of course. Draco had known it would be. Even if he hadn't predicted the way his eyes looked, so starry, and the glares Pansy had been giving him over it all evening. At least she had to admit that this was an undoubted triumph.

Skeeter had a headline that said simply, _THE DARK LORD_, and beneath that, the article began.

_Dark Lord Harry Potter appeared at Malfoy Manor this afternoon clad in storm and night. He seemed to believe that the Ministry as a whole is against him, including all the candidates for Minister. But that changed when he looked into the soul of the candidate he came to visit, the one who's made a promise to trust him, Draco Malfoy._

And it went on from there, leaving no moment out, although Draco was sure that she'd exaggerated some of them, like how tightly Potter held his chin. It had been made all too clear in their conversation afterwards that Potter held no romantic intentions.

Come to that, Draco wasn't sure himself. He knew what he wanted at the moment with Potter, but in the long term, only the political alliance had yet occurred to him. He wasn't sure whether he would settle for sleeping together, a romance, or some kind of intense friendship with occasional nights together. It made his skin pop with sharp excitement, that he had someone whose every move he couldn't predict.

"You know," Pansy began, and then Rosenthal stepped into the sitting room where they'd come, the same where Draco had had his conversation with Potter earlier. Pansy shut her mouth hard and turned her back on the doorway.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Malfoy," Rosenthal said. "But I thought you should know that this came a moment ago." She held out a slate-blue envelope.

Draco promptly cast spells that would detect curses and hexes, ignoring the way Rosenthal glared at him. Yes, she would have used them herself, but the ones she knew weren't as thorough. And there were some trap charms that would only activate when the desired hand touched the letter, making it perfectly safe for anyone but the target to handle.

"What kind of owl delivered it?" he asked, his eyes never leaving the envelope. He was sure it contained a threat; the only thing that remained to discover was what kind it was.

"A black owl that immediately flew away again," Rosenthal said, and her lips clamped shut harder and harder.

Draco raised an eyebrow at her. "Yes, but other people than Potter could use black owls," he told her. "In fact, I would be surprised if it came from him. He would just send a message with his Patronus if he'd decided to turn on me."

Rosenthal turned her head to the side so hard that her braid banged against her neck. "I'll never get used to the way you read minds."

"I read behavior," Draco said absently, taking the envelope from her via a wand-flick, because she wouldn't move nearer. As far as his spells revealed, there was nothing trapped about it. He touched the envelope, and nodded. There was none of the telltale slimy feeling of Dark magic, either. That didn't mean it was innocent—it was probably very far from innocent—but the threat probably came from the writing. "The owl flew away at once? Or did it seem to fade as it flew?"

"If it faded, it did it behind a cloud. I watched it that long."

Draco nodded again, and slid his finger beneath the envelope's flap. He could feel something thicker than a single piece of parchment inside it, which meant that he either had an enemy who didn't know how to be brief, or someone who had sent photographs instead.

Draco tilted the envelope, and glossy moving pictures spilled into his hands. Before he turned them around, he could feel the same sharp tingle of excitement making its way up his spine. Would they be photos of him having sex? Photos of his friends in compromising positions? Perhaps even Rosenthal would be included, or other people who worked for him. This seemed like the sort of thing Tillipop might do if he worked out that Draco's people had planted most of the evidence for rumors about him.

_If _he figured that out. And Draco had to admit he didn't think it very likely.

But instead, the top photograph showed nothing he recognized. Draco stared. A house, where the only movement around it was the trees in the front garden shifting in the wind. The house was small and plain, and not one that Draco knew from Hogsmeade or his rare journeys to wizarding London. He turned it around and studied it, but no, the only thing that remained in it was the trees moving.

Then the front door opened, and someone came out. Draco squinted, but he could be sure he didn't know her. He had never seen a more unmagical person. A tall woman, whose height seemed to be mostly in her neck, and whose long pale face and pinched nostrils did nothing for her. Behind her came a heavy blond man, puffing and blowing, and another, younger man. Draco frowned. They were probably Muggles, but he had no idea why his mysterious enemy would think that Muggles meant anything to him.

Draco shook his head, handed the photograph to Blaise because he sometimes went to Muggle places for fun and might recognize this one, and turned to the next four.

One was of a cupboard door that, again, had nothing special about it as far as Draco could tell. The next was a school—Draco assumed so, anyway, because of the children playing outside it, although he knew nothing about Muggle primary schools and maybe it was an orphanage—that triggered no memories. The third showed a window with bars on it, photographed from what was probably the side of the house; nothing moved in this one. And the last showed a door with six locks and a cat-flap at the bottom.

Draco stared in silence, then looked up to see Blaise shaking his head. Pansy pounced on the pictures as Draco handed them over, but sat back less than a minute later, biting her lip.

"Well," Draco said. "I know these photographs don't belong to me, and they tell no part of my past. It was probably meant to hint at Potter's past instead."

Pansy blinked and snapped her fingers. "That's right. Wasn't he raised by Muggles? So this might be her Muggle family." She looked at the photograph of the house again. Draco leaned over her shoulder and saw that the family had gone back inside. "But—none of these are exactly incriminating. What does the person who sent them want you to do? Get upset about some secret hidden on the premises?"

Draco shook his head. He had to admit that had been his first thought, with the way the focus seemed to be on buildings, instead of people, but that made the school's inclusion pointless. Why would a secret about Potter's childhood be divided between, presumably, the house he had lived in and the school he had gone to?

"A curse misfired," he told Rosenthal, who watched him with bleak eyes. "But I promise, I don't intend to remain in the dark for long." He cast a handful of Floo powder into the flames, then hesitated as he realized he didn't know what address would reach Potter.

He shrugged and called out, "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!" That should fetch someone, at least. Potter had probably left house-elves on duty so he could communicate with the press if one of them tried that route, and he was bonded to the school. Draco couldn't imagine that he wouldn't feel a fireplace opening.

Draco gathered up the photographs as he waited for an answer. He was sure one would be forthcoming. No one would send these pictures for no reason.

But Draco had to admit, he had no earthly idea what these could be for. He only hoped Potter knew.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for Potter to appear, fetched by the single squeaking house-elf who had answered the Floo call. Draco held up the first photograph and opened his mouth to ask the question.

As Potter's face drained of any blood fast enough that he swayed on his feet, Draco now had to admit their unknown enemy might have chosen a decent weapon after all.


	15. Humoring Him

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fifteen—Humoring Him_

Harry wanted to speak, but all he could think of was the blockage in his throat and the people in the photo. He hadn't seen or spoken to them in years, which felt like generations. He could feel them, though. There were still places in his body that always would.

And worse, Malfoy had _seen _his reaction.

Harry's eyes snapped back to Malfoy's. He had lowered the photographs and was staring at Harry with a silent face. Harry wondered how many other people were in the room. It seemed likely there must be some, or Malfoy would have said something before now. Harry swallowed and managed to smile a little.

"Those are pictures of my Muggle family," he said. "Did someone send them to you?" That would be the solution, of course. There was no reason for Malfoy to concern himself with the Dursleys' existence as long as they didn't somehow come into play during the campaign or the war.

And more than that, Harry thought, his eyes on the photographs that he could see sliding out from behind the first one of the Dursleys, these pictures were _old. _The Dursleys no longer lived in Number Four Privet Drive. Harry knew that much, although not where they were. Apparently they had shaken off their Auror protectors the minute the war was over and relocated somewhere in England. Harry was glad. Other than a few wistful thoughts about Dudley, he didn't care what they did.

But someone must have taken pictures of the house, and of his primary school. They had taken pictures of the bars and the locks when those bars and locks still existed.

_Well, at least that narrows the suspect pool. It has to be someone who has access to Ministry files. _Harry had discovered one file on himself in the Ministry Archives shortly after he became an Auror, and he was as sure as lightning that Dumbledore, for all that he knew more about Harry's home life than he let on, wouldn't have taken these pictures or willed them to anyone who would use them this way. If he'd given them to someone like McGonagall, even, she would have come to talk to Harry about them before this.

But that they had been taken long ago, and left to lie until discovered by an enemy? Or even that an enemy had found them long ago and waited to see when they would best be used? That, Harry could believe.

"They are your family, then," Malfoy said, and lowered the pictures a little. "I wasn't sure. Do you know why they were sent to me instead of you?"

Harry nodded, still thinking furiously. It was better than thinking about how much Malfoy now knew, or guessed. "Yes. They wanted you to know some of the secrets that they had the power to expose. It would be the same if they'd snapped pictures of, I don't know, me having sex in public. Better to try and threaten you into backing away from me because they can make me a political liability than attack me directly. That hasn't worked for them the last few times." He smiled grimly, feeling a little more strength from that reminder.

"Why would these pictures make you a political liability?" Malfoy asked, his voice exquisitely neutral. "What do they imply?"

_Here it comes. _Harry had never had to make a direct confession like this. Ron knew some things, from seeing those bars on the window, and Hermione had hinted she knew some things, and they had lived quietly together in a bubble of mutual understanding. But Malfoy was staring at him, and Harry had been the one who brought up the nature of the threat in the first place.

"Because they show that I was abused," Harry said. He said the word, he'd said the word, he'd been the one to say it, he reminded himself as Malfoy's gaze sharpened. No matter how much he _hated it, _no matter how much Malfoy's friends might taunt him, at least Malfoy hadn't had to name it. "This is another thing they can spin to show that I'm mental and acting out of what happened to me in childhood. You _know _that. Their last tactic backfired on them because they made other people worry about what secrets the Mind-Healers might betray. This one won't do the same thing. They can feel sorry for me, poor abused little Harry Potter, and suggest delicately that no one who grows up in such circumstances is _normal_."

"More along the lines of what they were suggesting, last time," Malfoy said after a moment.

Harry nodded. "But more powerful this time, because they have pictures. There are plenty of people who probably didn't read all the way through those documents they published. Pictures are easier to comprehend. Easier to sensationalize."

Malfoy whistled through pursed lips. He didn't look as upset as Harry had thought he would once Harry explained the intent behind the photos, what _had _to be the intent behind the photos.

But his next words proved that was because he still didn't understand everything. "How can you tell from the pictures that you were abused?"

"Let me see all of them fully," Harry demanded, leaning forwards. He hadn't been able to make out every detail of the last two, although he was pretty sure what they were.

* * *

"He's taking this more calmly than I expected him to," Pansy said in a light murmur that Draco knew Potter wouldn't pick up, as Draco rearranged the photos.

Draco simply shrugged with one shoulder. He had thought the reaction would be more violent, too, considering the way Potter's face had paled when he first saw the photos, but he didn't know what would happen next. He wouldn't know the source of _either _reaction until he heard the story behind the pictures.

And he was starting to think it was even more disturbing than the ones he had begun to make up in his own head.

Potter studied the bars and the door with the locks and cat-flap, and nodded. "Yes, that's the outside and the inside of my old bedroom," he said. "Well, the way it looked from the side of the house and the way it looked from the corridor leading up to it." He sighed and dragged his hand through his hair, then sat down in the seat that Hogwarts had helpfully shoved up behind him. "That was where they kept me."

"Kept you?" Draco repeated delicately.

Potter nodded. "Oh, and that one," he added, because the cupboard picture had fallen out of Draco's hand, and Potter had probably only seen it now, when Draco picked it up from the floor and juggled it to ensure it a place among the others. "The cupboard was where I lived until I was eleven. The second bedroom was where I lived afterwards."

"A guest bedroom?" Blaise was the one who asked the question, leaning forwards as though he wanted Potter to see him.

Potter gave him a single flat stare, as though wondering who he was and what he wanted, and then nodded. "Well, originally. It was a room they used to store all my cousin's toys eventually. They moved me in there because they thought wizards were watching." He turned back to Draco. "They wanted to show you—whoever sent these pictures, I mean—that they know all the secrets, where I lived and who I lived with. The school one was probably included just to show that they also knew where I went to school. Nothing like that happened to me there. Well, except that my cousin chased me and beat me up. But so did other kids."

Draco blinked. He thought he would go on doing that until Potter cleared some things up. "Who would have sent these?"

"I think they're from a Ministry file," Potter said, shaking his head. "I don't know where the Dursleys live now, but it's not there. And I know that anyone who got into the house after that would have taken off the bars and the locks. The cupboard might not even still be there. It was pretty small."

Draco just sat there. Pansy's face was empty. Blaise was the one who cleared his throat and asked a question. "Was confinement enough to make you mental, then? Would the person who sent the pictures think that?"

"It depends on how much else they knew," Potter said, and now he was grimacing as though he had bitten into spoiled lettuce. But he kept going. "My relatives also made me work a lot. Called me names. Didn't tell me magic existed." He hesitated, measuring his audience with his eyes. Draco didn't know if it was something in Draco's face or Blaise's that compelled him to go ahead. "Starved me."

"And starvation can have effects on someone's mind and body and magic," Blaise said, for all the world as though he was discussing an academic theory.

Draco wanted to shake Blaise, but he couldn't miss that Blaise's tone was exactly what Potter needed. He smiled, a moment later, and relaxed. "Exactly. I didn't know about the effects on magic until just recently, but the effects on the mind would be the important ones. Maybe they wouldn't even try to play me off as mental, just too stunted and stupid to know what I was doing."

Draco examined Potter again. He had to wonder how much Potter _had _been affected. "How much did they starve you?" he asked, to know but also to have something to say.

"It depended," Potter said. "How angry they were, usually. Some days I got to eat normally. I missed meals if I used magic. I also missed meals when my aunt tried to put my cousin on a diet. And there were sometimes during the summer when I got one piece of food a day." He grimaced. "It was pretty bad for Hedwig, too."

"Hedwig?" Blaise asked.

"My owl." Potter shook his head as though he wished he hadn't brought her up. "Died during the war."

Blaise only nodded, but Draco said, "Then—did whoever sent these pictures think I wouldn't talk to you? That I would _really _be scared off by this? It doesn't sound as though you were starved enough to really stunt you."

"You forget, they haven't seen us interact yet except by my staring into your eyes and apparently reading your soul," Potter said dryly. A snort from Pansy said she agreed, but luckily, Potter continued speaking, so Draco didn't have to factor _that _into his universe yet. "They think you're frightened of me. This—it might not be exactly what I thought." He was speaking more slowly now, staring at the wall. "We'll know if they follow it up by releasing copies of the photos to the public, or contacting you again. The first one would suggest it's what I thought, the second one that they're just interested in causing some sort of rift between us."

Blaise leaned back and raised his eyebrows at Draco, mouthing words Draco knew Potter wouldn't be able to see. _He can reason this out._

Draco nodded. Potter needed the coaching of people like Draco and Ladon, obviously, but he was better than Draco had thought he was, and that might mean they could limit some of their interference, and Draco could even relax about aspects of politics he had thought Potter would have to have pounded into him.

"Does the abuse affect you from day to day?" Pansy asked, this time taking Blaise's place in front of the fire.

Potter looked at her, not without recognition but without much interest. "Do you mean, do I think about it? Not that often."

Pansy shook her head. "But nightmares and the like might make you more of a liability."

Potter snorted. "Of course they could. But I'm more likely to have nightmares about the war, which could do the same thing." He waved his hand at the sky, or else the invisible ceiling of the room in Hogwarts where he stood. "This is—an inconvenience. Something that happened to someone different, long ago and far away."

_Not so much, _Draco thought, _or you wouldn't have gone so pale on seeing those photos._

But he wouldn't say that in front of his friends. There were certain things that he and Potter would _have _to discuss in private, and soon. Blaise and Pansy might understand some of the political underpinnings, even reluctantly admire Potter as a political thinker, but they wouldn't understand the other things Draco wanted to say.

The things he _had _to say.

"Good," Draco said aloud. "Then the only thing we need to do is wait, and in the meantime, see who'll they send owls to." He hesitated one more time. This was a question he would have preferred to ask Potter in private, but as things stood, it was one he couldn't omit. "How will you react if they do publish the pictures?"

In the light of the fire, Potter's eyes had a more lambent flame still. "Not the way they want me to," he said, with quiet certainty. "They thought you would—perhaps they even thought you would despise me for the weakness of being abused by Muggles, if they sent them to you first. As it is, they warned me. Now I'll be ready."

He nodded to Draco, and shut the Floo connection down.

There was a little silence, and then Pansy cleared her throat and said, "Now I can't wonder that Potter declared himself a Dark Lord."

"There are still things that don't fit," Blaise said, perhaps because he saw some of the words gathering in the back of Draco's throat. He shook his head and picked up a wineglass in his slender fingers, frowning. "Why didn't he approve of Muggle-baiting and those other things? He should have hated Muggles, because of what they did to him."

Draco cleared his throat. "Perhaps he sees people more as individuals, instead of groups."

"He didn't see Slytherins that way," Pansy pointed out quickly.

"Mr. Malfoy." Draco started and turned to face Rosenthal, who he had forgotten. She was meeting his gaze with a candid one, although one that had shadows that made Draco suspect he knew what she was going to say. "Can I speak with you privately for a moment?"

Draco rose to his feet and nodded casually to his friends. "Go home and drink your own wine. I have business to conduct."

Pansy and Blaise stood up with stares in his general direction, but Draco couldn't be bothered by that. There was a grimness, a hardness, to the lines around Rosenthal's eyes that let him know this was no casual interview, and he shut the door of the next room, a small sitting room decorated in white and gold, gently behind him. Doing so engaged some wards that would prevent any eavesdropping.

Draco didn't ask whether his friends would try that if he left the temptation open. Of course they would. Better to save everyone embarrassment by shutting them out now.

Rosenthal turned around to face him. "We should consider if the one who sent these photos might not be right," she said.

Draco blinked. "Right that Potter was abused? Of course he was. He admitted that himself. As to what purpose they might have had in mind, Potter made some good guesses, but that's all that they are. We won't get any definitive proof until we have more evidence one way or the other, and only time will produce that."

He was rather proud of that small speech, but it earned him nothing more than a hard stare from Rosenthal. "You do not understand," she said. "Some of the things he said made sense. But we must ask ourselves whether—this is new information, sir. We _must _at least ask ourselves whether we are dealing with someone unstable."

Draco studied her. She was his adviser, and he shouldn't have hired her if he didn't want to listen to her advice, he reminded himself. The urge to snap at her was as counterproductive as it was childish.

"You thought he was already, didn't you?" he asked, because it made some of her earlier hesitation around Potter make sense. "That declaring himself a Dark Lord wasn't a good sign?"

Rosenthal handed him a slender smile. "I don't see what it can be called a _good _sign of, sir, except his willingness to challenge the Ministry. And that might not be the best plan. I've gone along with this so far, but that was before I realized there might be a source of his instability. Other than the war, I mean. He seems to have coped with his trauma from the war. But dismissing childhood abuse like this is a worrying thing."

Draco sighed. No, he couldn't snap at her. Her concerns were perfectly reasonable on the face of it. He might not want to admit it, but that didn't change reality. "What do you think I should do, then?"

"Don't commit to Potter in public yet, sir," Rosenthal said, lowering her eyes and twisting her braid between her fingers. That said a great deal, for her. Draco hadn't realized until then how afraid she had been that he would disregard her advice. "Luckily, the only thing we have so far is Skeeter's article, and that could be taken a lot of different ways. Wait. Don't try to find out who sent the photographs yet. When we have more evidence, as you pointed out, we shall know how to move."

Draco nodded slowly. "All right. No commitment in public? I can do that." They had barely begun their dance in public. It would do no harm to delay it for a time.

But in private…

_I am going to speak to Potter tomorrow. Come advisers or high water._


	16. Private Conversations

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Sixteen—Private Conversations_

Harry looked up as Briseis stepped into his office—well, the disused classroom he had started to make his office. Harry had to admit that the desk he had Transfigured from a stack of chairs wasn't as comfortable as the Headmistress's, but he wanted McGonagall to sit behind that one again if she could. "No luck?" he asked.

Briseis shook her head briskly and came up to him. She was holding the _Daily Prophet_, Harry saw. He braced himself as she spread it on the desk and said, "I don't think she'll ever trust you again, my Lord. You took too much confidence away from her, and I also think that she's privately disgusted she didn't try to do anything to spare Hogwarts, my Lord. What is this, my Lord?"

Harry had known what it would be from her tone of address if nothing else, and he looked at the photographs on the front page with only a few sharp leaps of his heart.

"Someone's idea of a joke?" he asked, but then he looked up into her face. He swallowed and glanced off to the side.

"You knew this was coming," Briseis said, in the kind of sweet tone Harry had sometimes heard when Hermione thought someone had stolen one of her books. "You knew, and you didn't tell me. Even though I'm supposed to be your adviser."

"They were sent to Malfoy yesterday," Harry muttered, standing up from behind his desk and pacing back and forth. "I think they were intended as a threat to make him back away from me. We _had _to wait to see what they did next, though. Maybe that was the way they were meant, but we couldn't be sure."

"No, instead it's a warning to the whole wizarding world to consider you as an abused child instead of a rational adult," Briseis snapped, and leaned her hip on the desk, and scowled at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were busy yesterday, and I didn't feel like talking about it," Harry said. "I already had to talk about it with Malfoy in front of some of his—friends." He had been about to say "Slytherin friends," but he had to remember that Briseis had been in that House, too.

"No," Briseis said a minute later, as they stared at each other and Harry tried to figure out why she hadn't already responded. "I meant, why didn't you tell me this was a factor? That someone might pry into your past and bring this kind of thing out? I could have had a countermove ready if you had."

Harry stared at her some more. Briseis made an impatient noise and snapped her fingers in front of his nose. Harry jumped back.

"You really _aren't _afraid of me, are you?" he asked, as he watched the floor mounding up beneath Briseis. She rode it as if she were surfing a wave, all the while never taking her eyes from him.

"I can't be if I'm to be your Death Eater," she snapped. "Now, answer the question."

Harry blinked again, rubbed his eyes, and then shook his head and plunged into answering the question, because why not? He had already spoken about this in front of Malfoy's friends, feeling that he had little choice when Malfoy had already taken some risks for him, and at least he thought Briseis was more loyal to him than Parkinson or Zabini would have any reason to be. "I wouldn't have told you."

Briseis stared at him in turn. Then she turned and took a chair on the other side of the room, although at least she turned it to face the desk. She Vanished some of the dust around her with a single movement of her wand.

"I see."

Harry winced. He hated the tone that had just come out of her mouth. He couldn't stay still; he started pacing again, over to the other side of the room, where he resisted the urge to kick the wall. Hogwarts had been too good to him for him to take out his temper on her in petty urges like that.

"It never—I never thought that anyone would get hold of anything from my Muggle past," he said. "It should have stayed dead and buried. I never talked about it. Nor did anyone else at school, and there were people there who would have _rejoiced _in having rubbish like that to talk about. I thought no one knew."

"But it affects your behavior, past and present," said Briseis. "It is the kind of thing I _should _have known about. Why did you not tell me?"

"Because I'm ashamed of it," Harry said. Get through this hard and fast, just like he had the initial admission of abuse to Malfoy and his minions, and perhaps it would hurt less. He turned to look at her. "Because there was never anyone who could stop it when it was happening, and then I came to Hogwarts and it wasn't important anymore."

Briseis turned her head silently to the newspaper.

"Yes, well, it's artificially important because they made it so," Harry said, and turned his back. The magic inside him crackled and sang. He listened to the humming of power through Hogwarts's wards because that was better than exploding in a storm of thunder and lightning. "But if they had never brought it up, I would never have told you."

Silence, but not the silence of Briseis getting up and walking out of the room, which was honestly what Harry had expected to hear. He turned his head and eyed her cautiously, wondering why she hadn't.

"Have you told anyone else?" Briseis asked. She sat upright on the chair now, her hands clasped in her lap. She looked like a parody of Aunt Petunia, the way she used to sit in church during that brief period when she decided it was important to being normal to go.

"I told you. Malfoy and—"

"No," Briseis said. "I meant—I don't know, the Headmaster, when he was alive. McGonagall. Your friends. That Weasley who keeps the joke shop. Anyone else you trust, anyone who could have helped you."

Harry turned slowly back towards her, resting his hip on the wall the whole while. Briseis sneaked a look at him, bit her lip as if she wanted to turn away, but kept looking. She didn't stop biting her lip, and Harry felt he was about to start.

"No one could stop it while it was happening," Harry told her. He felt—strange. As though he had to handle Briseis gently, even though she was the one who wanted to know if he had sought comfort for his stupid emotional wounds. "I had to go back to that house every summer because my aunt lived there, and being with her renewed the blood wards."

"If she didn't take you in willingly, then they wouldn't have been worth much," Briseis said, almost inaudibly.

Harry shook his head. "There was little to no love lost between us, but she did accept me of her own free will. I know—I heard something once that convinced me of that. I know."

Briseis did some more frowning. Then she said, "Someone like McGonagall could have made things easier for you, even if you did have to go back there."

Harry shook his head again. He felt tired, as though someone had strapped a lead weight to the back of his neck. There was a reason that he hated talking about this, and this was the main one, the way everyone would be all horrified and insist on exploring options that had closed a long time ago. "She couldn't have done anything. Dumbledore was the one who placed me there. He apologized, once, for doing that. He would have overruled McGonagall if she tried to do something. And anyway, threats didn't work on the Dursleys when I was a kid. By the time I was fifteen or so, they'd mostly stopped doing it. It was over."

Briseis continued sitting still for some moments. Harry used the time to recover himself. He hadn't told anyone this before, either. He was sure that Hermione would have stared at him in silence and Ron would have turned red before stammering out promises to do _something_.

But what could they do? Harry wasn't the little boy in the cupboard anymore, who could be benefited by a wizard climbing through the window. Just like Dudley wasn't the fat boy who had beaten him up anymore, and Harry didn't want him punished for that. They'd both changed. They'd both grown up.

Briseis finally stood and said, in an empty voice Harry had never heard from her, "I shall consider the pictures and come up with a viable course of action." She picked up the paper and glanced at Harry.

After a second, Harry realized what she was waiting for and waved his hand. "Yes, I've looked at it as much as I want."

Briseis faded away with the paper. Though she did pause on the threshold of the room, and turn around to bow to him.

Harry didn't know what kind of gesture he gave in response, a flap of his hand or a nod. He only knew that the door closed, and he was alone again, with the sluggish mud of his memories drifting up and down in his mind.

* * *

"So, what they did was send the photographs to the paper."

Draco said the words because they were the easy ones to say, and he'd come here to discuss the photographs—well, as far as Potter knew, anyway—and because Potter hadn't said anything to him since Draco entered his new office. Draco disapproved of the new office. There was still a taste and scent of dust in the air that Draco didn't think would ever be entirely gone. The new desk Potter had Transfigured wasn't as handsome as the one in what he insisted on calling the _Headmistress's _office. But Potter wouldn't listen to him if he talked about that.

For a second, Draco thought he wouldn't listen to him talk about this, either. Potter was standing by the far wall and staring at the stones as though they contained the answers to all the questions Draco wanted to ask.

_Not these. _Draco turned to a chair that had a stack of books holding up the broken leg and reconsidered sitting down in it. He had thought he could put Potter at his ease by acting casual, but now he doubted it.

"Yes," Potter said, turning around. "So I think they gave up on driving you away from me when you didn't write back."

Draco studied him for a moment. Potter's face was so tense that Draco wanted to snap his fingers and see if he jumped. But then, as a vibration moving in the floor under his feet warned him, the school might attack him. Draco didn't want to see what Potter would do enough to risk injuries.

"How could I write back?" Draco asked. "Their owl was gone."

"So maybe they really wanted the public exposure all along," Potter said, stalking past him without deigning to notice that. Draco turned to follow him as he paced. Potter wore dark blue robes today. Draco wondered if he had someone to interview. They were decidedly too ornate a costume for a private conversation with an ally. "But then why send the photographs to you first? That's what I can't figure out for sure, even though I have some ideas."

Well, Potter had acted like a Slytherin with his political analysis. Perhaps it was up to Draco to act more like a Gryffindor and push the direct route. "Potter."

It seemed, the minute the word was out, that Potter knew what he had come to say. He wheeled to face Draco, and his breath was low and fast. His hand rose, clenched in a fist, as if to hit or strike or defend.

He lowered the fist, of course, because he wasn't stupid, and because he must have known that he couldn't escape it. But he only nodded and said, "What did you want to tell me?"

"You were abused," Draco said.

Potter blinked and clasped his hands behind his back, rocking in place a little, like a toy someone had pushed. "Yes. I told you that the other day. Is this your plan now? To repeat facts to me until I crack?"

Draco made himself stare into Potter's eyes until Potter started fidgeting in place and looked uneasily the other way. Draco nodded. "You were abused, and you were more worried about it getting out than you wanted to show," he said. "You looked like you wanted to faint when you first saw the pictures."

"That was childish of me," Potter said quietly, staring at Draco as if daring him to disagree. "Because this is only another trick to try and make me look unstable, and I should have known it."

Draco took a step towards him. He had come prepared for a battle, after all, if not quite this thick a wall of denial. "I think you should be more honest with me than you're allowing yourself," he said.

"Explain what that means, and I will." Potter's voice was clipped enough now to make Draco wince.

Draco sighed. It was just as well he had made the commitment in his head to Gryffindor recklessness, because subtlety wouldn't have got through. "You were hurt," he said. "Hurt badly enough that I know how great your courage must have been to pretend that there was nothing important in those pictures, especially with two friends of mine listening."

Potter held his eyes, and then looked away. Draco saw a quick flash of something that might have been agony. But it got buried, again, and Potter stepped away from the small pile of wood that rose out of the floor as if inviting him to sit down.

"Look," Potter said softly, to what could as easily have been the walls or the desk instead of Draco. "I know I'm at risk of being unstable. I think that's been true since I was a year and a half old. I remember part of the way Voldemort killed my mother. That's what I see when Dementors come near me. But I promise I'm not going to crack and endanger your campaign. If I start, then Briseis will pull me back."

Draco moved nearer. "And you don't believe I came to speak about that, either," he murmured. "You're so frightened of what I _really _came to talk about that you're putting as many obstacles in the way as you can."

Potter swung around, and now there was an ugly snarl on his face, of the kind that might get Draco thrown out of the school after all. "What else were you going to talk about? Accuse me of deliberately keeping this a secret from you, the way Briseis did?"

Draco paused, temporarily intrigued by the thought of asking how that conversation had gone. But then he shook his head. Once again, Potter was using it as a distraction from the main target. He would fling out personal revelations all day, it seemed, like the Dementor fact, to keep Draco from moving closer to the heart of things.

"Why didn't I hear anything about this before?" he asked.

Potter stared at him. "Because I don't like going on about it, and my friends know how to keep secrets?"

"Not in that sense," Draco said, although thinking about it, he had to admit he could see how Potter had come to that interpretation of his words. "I meant—why didn't you speak to someone who could have helped you?"

"You and Briseis and your bloody similar questions," Potter muttered, folding his arms. "Look, I hate admitting it, okay? It makes me feel little and small and ashamed and helpless and powerless. I hate it. But it happened, and I'm okay now. I won't make trouble."

"I'm not concerned about that."

Potter turned around, rapidly enough that Draco had to stiffen his muscles so he wouldn't back up. Potter had stormed right up to him and was snarling in his face. Magic enwrapped him, in a crown of spiky yellow thorns that looked like a lion's mane stiffened with blood.

"Then tell me what you're concerned about," he hissed into Draco's ear. "And then _leave_. I'm tired of you."

Draco reached up and put his hands on either sides of Potter's face, ignoring the way the magic stung his palms. Potter hadn't actually smacked Draco across the room with his power, yet, or flayed his skin from his body. That had to mean something.

It meant that Potter stared at Draco for the next second, too, instead of attacking, and Draco could speak what was on his mind.

"When I realized what had happened, I wanted to touch you," he whispered. "I wanted to know so much more about what they did to you than what I could say in front of Blaise and Pansy. It meant I would have hunted down and hurt those Muggles, or I could have. If you'd talked to me about it." He touched Potter's hair, and tugged at it. "I wanted to protect you."

Potter gaped at him. Draco raised an eyebrow back. After the kisses they had shared, he hadn't thought the announcement would be entirely unexpected.

"But you know _nothing _about me," Potter whispered, as if marveling. "And I told you that I dealt with it."

"People who've dealt with it don't look as if they're going to faint at the sight of a picture," Draco whispered back, his lips an inch away from Potter's. Their breaths whistled together. Draco's hands tingled, and not with magic.

"People who are political allies don't want to punish other people they don't know for the sake of something that happened in the past," Potter snapped.

Draco nodded. He suspected the smile creeping up over his lips made him look a little strange, but he didn't care. Potter didn't push him away, and that was what Draco wanted.

"How right you are," he whispered. "But people who are _more _than political allies might want that."

Potter's eyes widened in shock, and Draco leaned in and kissed him again, this time feeling Potter's tongue sharp-tasting and sharply-moving against his, and the way that Potter's hands and magic rose as if they would push him away and then didn't.

Draco finished the kiss earlier than he'd meant to, because it was intense enough to knock him off his feet by itself, and he didn't want that yet. He leaned his forehead against Potter's instead and closed his eyes, wondering if anyone else knew the feeling of that rough, scarred skin above the lightning bolt the way he knew it.

"Now," he whispered, when the room had had time to stop reeling. "Will you tell me?"


	17. Off and Running

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seventeen—Off and Running_

Harry stared into Malfoy's eyes for a minute, and felt the strength of Malfoy's hands as they rested on his cheeks, and had to swallow.

Because it really did look as though Malfoy wanted more than being political allies, or even political allies with an occasional side of sex to keep their bond strong.

Harry swallowed again. The first thing, or rather the only thing he could think of right now, was Briseis. She would say that this was a problem. She would say that Harry had overstepped his boundaries to be even _accepting _the kiss, let alone all the problems with returning it or actually becoming Malfoy's lover, the way he seemed to want. She would scold Harry again, and Harry wouldn't have any answers, and—

"I told you the truth already," he said, meeting Malfoy's eyes and forcing himself to think about the political implications, the _bigger _ones that didn't involve Briseis yelling at him or Malfoy being disappointed. Yes, those were terrible things, but what _mattered _most of all was that he might be putting their cause in jeopardy. "And have you thought about the fact that I might not be the best partner for you? Politically, I mean. If word got out that you were sleeping with me, or if your adviser thought you were even if you weren't, then you might have problems with her. I don't want to do that—"

Malfoy reached out and placed his finger on Harry's lips.

It was rather ridiculous that a simple gesture should have so much power to shut Harry up, but it had managed. He fell silent and blinked a lot, or what felt like a lot in the time between when Malfoy made the gesture and when he made his reply.

"You're right that my adviser might not like it," Malfoy said, in a quiet, soothing singsong. "She told me to be distant with you in public. All right, I can do that. It's worth not losing her. But in private? That's a different matter, and one where she doesn't have the power to disapprove." He leaned nearer. "Tell me."

Harry felt as though he was in the middle of a whirlpool, carrying him deeper and deeper into the ocean. That it was a warm and caring and very _tender _ocean didn't precisely matter. In fact, that would probably make it all the harder to escape, at least without hurting someone. Which was precisely what he didn't want, when Malfoy was making such an effort to take care of him.

He looked away, because he couldn't not, and said, "I did tell you what they did. The cupboard and the meals and the chores and the yelling. That was it. I don't know what else you want to hear. Isn't that _enough_? Were you wanting to hear about rape or the time they broke all my bones? Because that didn't happen, sorry. They weren't the evil Muggles that you want them to be."

Malfoy said nothing. Harry could feel a trembling working its way down his hands. He thought he knew what was coming next. Malfoy would push Harry away and rage at him about "defending" the Dursleys, the way Hermione had during the clearest conversation they'd ever endured about it, and then things would turn around.

Perhaps because he could feel Harry expecting something like that and he must always do the opposite of what Harry expected, Malfoy didn't. Harry did hear him suck in a great and noisy breath, as though he was conquering the impulse to say something rude, and then his hands gentled on Harry's shoulders and smoothed up and down.

"I'm glad they didn't rape you or break your bones," Malfoy whispered. His voice was nowhere near Harry's ears, but it felt like that, felt as though Harry could sense the gentle whisper of his breath on warm, exposed skin. He shuddered in spite of himself, gooseflesh breaking out on his neck. Malfoy went on with a new tone in his voice, and Harry thought he'd probably noticed Harry's reaction. "But what they did is bad enough."

"Yes, all right," Harry said, looking back at him. They had moved in a new direction. Maybe it would really _be _new, and Harry could keep Malfoy from returning to the old ground. "But I already told you about that. I'm not lying. It took a lot of courage for me to say that much." That was truer than he'd wanted it to be, he realized abruptly. His legs felt as though they were hollow. For years, someone he couldn't trust finding out about the Dursleys had been his worst nightmare. Now the whole wizarding world knew.

But maybe that was a good thing. The damage any one person could do now was limited.

"What more do you want?" Harry continued. "Details? Because I can tell you that, but I don't think that will change anything."

* * *

Draco blinked as he looked at Potter. He hadn't expected a lot of things he'd said so far: the worrying over the broader political implications, the admission of fear, the way he seemed caught between dancing away from Draco and pressing closer when Draco spoke to him.

But this was something mostly expected, the resistance to saying anything else. Draco pulled himself together, told himself it was ridiculous to be disappointed that Potter hadn't collapsed on his chest and poured forth all the details of his life the minute Draco asked, and smiled. "Yes. That's what I want."

Potter stared some more. He looked lightning-blasted, bright, very young. "What do you—I mean, I don't know what else I can say. I told you how they starved me, where I lived. What's left? Numbers?"

"What you felt about it," Draco said, very softly, feeling as though Rosenthal had whispered the words into his ears. Or perhaps his own good sense, which had to be stronger than Rosenthal, really. "You didn't feel free to reveal that in front of my friends, and I don't blame you. But I want it."

Potter broke free from him and paced over to the other side of the room, staring out the window. The window gave a probably false vision of the grounds that included a glimpse of the Forbidden Forest. Draco waited, not folding his arms even though he wanted to. If Potter turned around and looked at him, Draco didn't want to look as though he was being defensive.

Silence pressed in on them, and Draco bit his lip to keep from saying something too soon. But in the end, his patience was less than Potter's stubbornness—or so he chose to voice it to himself. "Harry?" he whispered.

* * *

Harry closed his eyes. He felt as though someone had a bridle on him, and not even the way the windowsill trembled beneath his hands, rubbing against him like a cat in need of petting, could comfort him right now. He didn't want to answer Malfoy's question.

He'd already confessed how ashamed and small and helpless he felt. What else was left? Why did Malfoy insist on pressing into this, when Harry had done the best he could to make sure that it wouldn't politically inconvenience him?

_Because he cares about more than that. _

It was the obvious answer, and Harry turned around to face Malfoy on the strength of it. Malfoy had taken a step towards him, and took another when he saw Harry looking at him. His face was softer than Harry had known it could thaw.

"Do you feel comfortable telling me?" he whispered.

"_No_," Harry said. If this was an escape, he would take it. Even understanding what Malfoy wanted couldn't make this more comfortable. Nothing would, Harry thought viciously, and bit his lip as he clenched his hands down. He wanted to draw blood, or punch something. That might relieve the constant pressure Malfoy was putting on him.

Malfoy stepped quickly across the distance between them and took his hands, working his fingers in between Harry's closed ones, forcing him to let go. Harry blinked at him and shook his head a little.

"I don't want you to talk about it if you're uncomfortable," Malfoy said. "I thought that you weren't, or at least not that much. That was the reason I was asking. But we'll leave it until later if we have to."

"What if I'm never comfortable?" Harry asked. He had asked Hermione the same question once. She had blinked and looked away, but not before Harry had seen the gleam of tears on her lashes.

"I hope to earn your trust enough that you will be, someday," Malfoy said.

No flinching. None of the bloody _pity _that Harry hated seeing in his friends' faces, another reason that he didn't talk about this often. He glared at Malfoy, silently challenging him to back away.

Malfoy looked at him, smiling slightly. He hadn't let Harry's hands go yet. His fingers remained in place, and he didn't seem uncomfortable himself, and he didn't look afraid even when the stones beneath his feet mounded a little.

"Are you going to throw me out of Hogwarts?" he asked Harry calmly, directly. "Because you could do that, and I couldn't make you stop. I can't control you. I can't force you. I can only ask you." He bent his head, and for a second Harry thought Malfoy would kiss his hands, as insane as that was. Instead, Malfoy only kept his head bowed as he spoke, his words taking on an intensity that Harry didn't think they would have if they were both looking into each other's eyes. "I can only ask that you let me in."

Harry swallowed. His throat was dry, and it rang. That was unfair.

"What you're doing," he said, and stopped, because Malfoy was right. He wasn't forcing Harry in any way. Harry could throw him off and walk away, and Malfoy's adviser would probably prefer it that way. They could still continue their political relationship. For absolutely no reason, with no evidence worth building such a rock-hard faith on, Harry knew that was true. Malfoy wouldn't let the personal relationship they were building interfere with what they were doing to establish him as Minister and Harry as Dark Lord.

"It's unfair?" Malfoy asked quietly. "Well. It's true that it would probably be more _decent_ to back away and let you speak to me on your own time. But I don't think you would. And I'm less fair than your friends, I admit. I want more from you than your friends do." His fingers closed down, not imprisoning but clutching, firmer than Harry had known hands could be.

"I'm asking," Malfoy said, his voice falling. "That's what I'm doing. Asking isn't unfair."

"It is when you don't really want to know," Harry snapped, the only retort he could come up with.

Malfoy jerked his head up, and Harry had been wrong. Being looked at like that, from those wide grey eyes, was infinitely more intense than anything that could have come through Malfoy's voice alone.

"What makes you think I don't want to know?" Malfoy asked, and then did _another _unfair thing and leaned in enough to put his hand on Harry's cheek. "What makes you think—you really believe that I don't want to know?"

"Not like that," Harry said, twisting free again. His hands were fluttering like birds. He tried to clasp them together behind his back, to show that they had _something _to do and he wasn't lost when Malfoy wasn't holding them, which wasn't true. "I just—look, you've never been my friend, all right? We're allies, and we make good ones. And I absolutely believe that you won't betray what I tell you. But _what use _do you have for this information, if not as political coin?" He shook his head. "It just—look, it just doesn't make sense, all right? No one but me really needs to know these things anyway, but Ron and Hermione know, and I can't take it away from them. And what you know, I can't take away from you. But you don't _need _to know more than that. Not for any reason I can think of. You don't need to know how I feel about it."

* * *

_Oh_.

Draco could feel himself relaxing, unexpectedly. Yes, what Harry wanted from him might have made him angry at one point, but it didn't now, not now that he knew the source of Harry's confusion.

"You're absolutely right," he said.

Harry gaped at him.

Draco took a step towards him, smiling, and he thought it was a measure of Harry's confusion that he didn't try to stop Draco. Draco put his hands gently on Harry's hips and leaned near enough that Harry's eyes crossed looking at his lips.

"I don't need to know," Draco whispered. "No, there's no political purpose to be gained by it." He had thought of saying that it would serve him to tease Rosenthal with, but he was too affected by Harry's statement that he knew Draco would never betray his secrets.

Harry shut his mouth, but his eyes continually shifted back and forth between Draco's lips and the rest of his face. "Then you know that—"

"But I _want _to know," Draco said. "I don't think it will kill me not to know. Nor do I think it would damage me politically. The only thing it would satisfy in me is my desire. The only thing it would give you is the knowledge that someone wants to know." He firmed his hold on Harry's hips. "So that's it. I'm giving you my personal wish to know more about this. You can refuse it on those grounds, but you deserve to know at least what the grounds are."

Harry closed his eyes and bowed his head. Draco didn't know why, at least not until Harry's hands took his, gripping hard enough to make Draco's bones creak. Draco stood still. He thought Harry might let him in, but he was as likely to throw Draco's hands off and tell him to get out. It all depended on his fear.

It was odd, Draco thought. _He _would have been fearful once at displaying his desires like this. Training for the political arena had given him more of a notion of the importance of control, if anything. He should have held his breath and trembled a little at the weapon he had handed Harry.

But he couldn't shake his fervent faith that Harry wouldn't act against him. It was probably the same as Harry's faith that Draco wouldn't betray him. Not sensible, but not senseless, either.

* * *

_Shit._

Harry could have walked away from someone asking out of curiosity, or pity, the way that Hermione had with the tears trembling in her throat once. He could have faced someone asking him because of the way the photographs appeared in the paper and curled his lip and stared them down.

But this simple statement of longing, and the look in Malfoy's eyes when he said it…

It made _Harry _want to tell him.

Slowly, Harry released Malfoy's hands. He left them in place, on his hips. Malfoy tugged him closer, not near enough to lean against him, but near enough that Harry could hear his heartbeat. He could probably have seen the pulse jumping in Malfoy's throat, too, but right now, he wanted to keep his eyes closed.

"I hated them," Harry whispered. "Sometimes it would frighten me, how much I hated them. I knew other kids would say things at school about hating their parents, but I watched how they ran to hug them, and I knew it wasn't the same thing. I lay awake at night in my cupboard and thought about them dying. Burning to death. For some reason, that was always the thought that came first."

Malfoy said nothing, but stroked his hips, and breathed on Harry's lips, and stood there.

"And then, near the time I was going to Hogwarts," Harry said slowly, "I forgot I thought that. It was like I sensed something was going to make things different and so I didn't need to hate the Dursleys as much because soon I wouldn't _see _them as much. So I was cheerful when I went to Hogwarts, and I could be casual about it. And I hated spending holidays with them, but this time, I knew there was an escape."

Malfoy moved one arm up around Harry's back, but didn't yet pull him into an embrace.

"And thinking about it now," Harry whispered, never knowing if he was going to have the courage to speak the words again, "I think I should be over it. I don't want anyone to pity me because of it. I don't want to think or talk about them.

"But…I remember how I hated them then, and sometimes I'm closer to that than I am to forgiving them."

Malfoy kissed him on the lips, put his other arm around Harry's back, and pulled him closer. Harry stood there, and shuddered a little, dealing, slowly, with the fact that he had said it, and nothing had died, and nothing had been destroyed, and he was still here, grown-up and with someone who considered him an adult, not a damaged child.

And Malfoy was still holding him.


	18. United

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eighteen-United_

"I half-expected you to throw me out."

Harry snorted and sipped from his cup of water. He didn't feel like anything stronger right now. As if sensing that desire, or maybe in mutual agreement that he shouldn't have a drink, the house-elf had brought him this beautiful silver goblet already full to the brim with a small, silent bow.

"I thought about it," he said, turning to Malfoy, who sat with his legs folded up beneath him on a cushioned stool. Harry had Transfigured the stool for him with nothing more than a wave of his hand. Performing complex magic inside Hogwarts got easier all the time. "You were making me talk about things I didn't want to talk about."

Malfoy turned his head to the side and studied Harry with one eye from beneath his fall of silky hair. Harry grimaced. He shouldn't be noticing things like that about his hair, but it seemed useless to try and stop it.

"I didn't _make _you talk about it," Malfoy corrected, with a little sniff and a shake of his head that caused Harry to lick his lips. He promptly soothed his throat with more water. "You _know _I didn't. You could have thrown me out or commanded me to shut my mouth, and I wouldn't have had any choice."

"But I didn't feel like I could," Harry said. "Why is that? I'm the more powerful wizard here, but it seems I can't get my own way, not around you and not around Briseis."

Malfoy laughed at him. "Haven't you learned anything yet, Potter? We were both Slytherins, and you weren't. That's automatically enough to shift the balance of power to us in any situation that involves politics."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I _was _watching your face when I told you about my childhood, you know. You were surprised at the amount of political awareness I showed." He winced a bit as he remembered that he hadn't had a chance to display the same amount of knowledge to Briseis. He had surprised her and taken her off-guard, and then insulted her.

"You know more than I would have expected, that's for sure," Malfoy said, and looked up to smile at him fully. Harry definitely needed that water now. "That will be an asset as we plan our strategies. But you didn't know enough to realize that talking about your childhood and your feelings with someone specific would help you."

Harry's eyes briefly saw the inside of his skull as he rolled them. "You helped me," he said. "Thank you. I appreciate it." Malfoy's smile deepened, and Harry cleared his throat and put his cup of water down beside him. "In the meantime, we should talk about other things. I know someone in the Ministry sent those photos. It's the only logical conclusion. They got photos of the house that the Dursleys don't live in anymore. That _I _don't live in anymore. At the least, those photos have to be six or seven years old, and probably more than that."

Malfoy just nodded as though that made sense, and then said, "Do you think it was someone who saved them to use as political ammunition against you? Or someone who stumbled across them unexpectedly?"

Harry shook his head. "I have no idea. Could be either." He bit his lip, hesitating, but Malfoy leaned forwards, and his eyes practically pulled the confession out of Harry. Harry had no idea how he did that. "I hope it was someone who stumbled across them. Or-well, maybe I shouldn't hope that. But if it was the same person who first took the photos or arranged for them to be taken, it means that someone in the Ministry knew I was abused for at least a decade, and did nothing about it."

Malfoy simply inclined his head. "There might be a way that you can use to find out," he said.

"_I _can?" Harry cocked his head. He had assumed, without thinking about it, that those greater political sensibilities and contacts Malfoy had been bragging about and hinting at would be used to discover the answer to this particular puzzle. "You aren't going to have Rosenthal search the Ministry?"

Malfoy stood up and crossed the distance between his stool and Harry's chair. Harry wouldn't rise and reveal his nervousness that way. He let his hands rest on the padded arms and twisted his head to the side, echoing the trick Malfoy had used on him.

That had the pleasing effect of making Malfoy pause and swallow before he touched Harry, at least. Although since his hands slid like water down Harry's shoulders and ended up in the middle of his chest, with him staring at Harry from a few centimeters away, Harry decided that it counted as a qualified triumph. "You can do it," Malfoy whispered. "Because you have the power."

"A ritual?" Harry asked. Those were the only things he knew of that depended on sheer magical strength. Yes, rituals often needed special times of the year and artifacts, as well, but you had to have the power to take advantage of the time and raise the potential of the artifacts.

"Yes," Malfoy said, his voice all but muffled against Harry's temple. _He really likes to turn his head, _Harry thought muzzily, and kept still. Yes, he could follow, but that would press his lips to Malfoy's. Not the time for this, when they were trying to plan. "A ritual that can be conducted on the full of the moon, with the burning of something an enemy has touched, to reveal the face of that enemy. The moon will be full in four days, and, oh, look." He reached into a pocket and delicately drew out two of the glossy photos that he had showed Harry through the fireplace. "We just happen to have originals, not only the copies of the photos that were made for the papers."

Harry had to laugh as he took the pictures. They were the ones of the cupboard door and the locks on his bedroom. "Do you think there's any way our enemy could have anticipated this? Got someone else to touch the pictures, perhaps?"

Malfoy shrugged. "That would depend on him not only knowing about the ritual, but anticipating that we would, knowing that you have the power to conduct it, and believing we have the level of trust between us to share our plans and for me to tell you about this." He drew back, his eyes brilliant. "You said, _our _enemy."

"Isn't he?" Harry lifted his chin. Malfoy was far enough away now not to make that awkward. "Since he sent the pictures to you, tried to involve you in this, I think he's your enemy as well as mine."

"But you spoke of us together." Malfoy's voice was low, his hand soft as he stroked the side of Harry's face, just beneath his ear. "I'm startled and pleased, that's all, Harry. Give me a moment to enjoy it."

Harry had to smile in spite of himself. He held still and let Malfoy touch him. He only reciprocated with a quick touch to Malfoy's hand. He didn't want Malfoy to think he was ungrateful, but he did think that they had more important things to talk about right now.

"Besides," Malfoy said, seizing the chance to continue speaking sooner than Harry could, "even if the face revealed is that of an underling who touched the photographs, then we could still find him and figure out where the chain of influence leads, from him to the person who actually ordered the photos sent."

Harry nodded. He was no good at figuring out chains like that; time and again, Ron had told him that Harry had insulted someone who mattered a lot, or had relatives who mattered a lot, and Harry hadn't known. "That'll be a task for you."

"Hmm," hummed Malfoy, stroking the skin beneath his ear again. "Just as the ritual is for you. See how nice working together can be?"

Harry laughed in spite of himself. Malfoy smiled at him and finally stepped back enough to go back to his own chair. Harry watched the way he moved, and then shook his head a little. A few days ago, he would have said that he was glad Malfoy was graceful because it meant he was more likely to handle himself in a duel and require less of Harry's protection. Now, he didn't feel like lying to himself.

It was still an open question how far the _personal _aspect of their alliance should go, and whether Briseis or Rosenthal were going to like it. But Harry decided that he could tackle one thing at a time, and still have them count.

"Teach me how to conduct the ritual," he said.

* * *

"You look magnificent, and you know it, Minister Malfoy."

Draco turned away from the mirror with a languid smirk and turned it into a smile as he looked at Rosenthal. "Weren't you the one who told me not to refer to myself with that title yet?" he asked, as he opened the door of the room he'd used to preen and stepped out into the corridor that led to the grand dining room where he was having his dinner party for a hundred of his closest allies and enemies. "Never anticipate victory before it comes, you said."

"I spoke it so that you would cease your preening and follow me." Rosenthal walked in front of him, her head turned back only a little so that she could keep him under observation from one bright eye. "Is Potter going to be here?"

Draco shook his head. "He's busy tonight."

Specifically, with the ritual that Draco had told him about. The full moon gleamed through the Manor's windows as Draco passed after Rosenthal. He smiled at it. He had planned this party several weeks ago, wanting to show his guests the Manor gardens by moonlight, but it made a convenient distraction for anyone who might want to choose between keeping an eye on him and Harry at the same time.

"With something that will help us instead of put us at a disadvantage, I hope," Rosenthal said, turning around at the great white door that blocked entrance into the dining room and staring at him.

Draco smiled at her. "Yes. A ritual that only he has the power to perform."

Rosenthal hesitated. "The one you had me look up two months ago?" Her fingers curled into her palms.

Draco shook his head and put one hand on her arm, only now aware of how far he had pushed her, if she could think that. "No. This is one that I already knew about, and found in books in the Manor library. The time to use the ritual that you looked up for me hasn't come yet. It might not ever do so."

Rosenthal stood there in silence for a little while, looking straight at him. Draco just stood there and looked in return, because he knew nothing about what was going through her head. He had given her the task of looking up the ritual because it could be used defensively as well as offensively and because it might let him win the campaign, which after all was what he'd hired her to help him with.

But it had also been a test of her loyalty, in a way. If Rosenthal was that committed to him, then she would show it. If she wasn't, she would balk at the thought of using such Dark magic.

Rosenthal broke his gaze and gave a slight grimace as she arranged herself in front of him in the stance of a herald. "It seems the wizarding world as a whole is becoming Darker," she muttered.

Draco shrugged with his palms flat. "With a new Dark Lord in Hogwarts, what can you expect?"

Rosenthal closed her eyes and took a deep breath before pushing the door open, her own arms extended as she cried, "Ministerial candidate Mr. Draco Malfoy!"

Draco stepped into the shining room with a shining smile. The light came back to him from the innumerable branches of candles that he could see gleaming along the walls, and the torches that shone and flamed among them, and the enormous chandelier that the dining room hadn't originally sported but which Draco had declared was indispensable to his plans tonight and had set Rosenthal to finding.

The room was filled with dazzling light, and subtle spells and even subtler mirrors, set into the white marble walls, funneled the brilliance to a cone focused on the door, where Draco stood. Draco placed one hand behind his head and rolled it a little, knowing that he would spark and sparkle in the eyes of most of those there. Many of them wouldn't even realize that they were seeing more than the light provided by their own minds.

Draco's robes picked up and refracted the light back from their gold trimmings, and Draco made his way down the wide, shallow stairs, towards the clump of reporters who waited for him. He would speak with them first, and then make the round of the room, flirting and joking and making courteous, cold remarks, as required.

He would do everything he could to get himself elected as Minister. That hadn't changed, despite Rosenthal's private opinion of his goals. Draco still wanted this, now that he had the challenge that had been missing. Maintaining his position as elected Minister and yet ally of the new Dark Lord would be a balancing act that only one bad slip could mar forever.

The days between the publication of the photos and now had passed with no more revelations about who their enemy might be. But Draco didn't worry. Harry's ritual would take care of it, and he might hear something tonight.

"...shocking photographs..."

It appeared he had found the first group he should join. Draco turned towards them with a smile that he knew was more enchanting than the light playing around the room, and said, "Champagne, ladies?"

* * *

Harry stood up and glared at the circle trampled flat into the grass. Hogwarts had done it herself, eager to help him, but Harry had had to correct the position of some of the blades. If the circle wasn't perfectly flat and clear of all interference, then Harry knew that some of the power would leak away and refuse to stay inside.

He tilted his head back and studied the sky. The instructions Malfoy had left him said the ritual had to be performed halfway between moonrise and moonset, the moon's "noon." Harry had used his magic to create the illusion of a shining golden star at the right position in the heavens. The moon would cross it in a few minutes.

Harry sighed and closed his eyes. The rest of the preparations wouldn't take long. It was the nature of what Malfoy was asking him to do that made him hesitate.

Harry had used Dark magic, or at least Light magic for Dark purposes. But this ritual was purely and simply made of blood and fire. He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair, then laughed breathlessly when a breeze tried to smooth it out for him. Over the last few days, his bond with Hogwarts seemed to be increasing. The air and the light-and the grass-shifted around him now, orienting on him, seeming to plead with him to pay more attention to them. Harry found he didn't want to disappoint them.

"Well, let's get on with it," he said, as the moon edged closer to the right moment. He stepped into the circle and turned to hold up one hand. He sharpened the air into an invisible knife, and sliced open his right palm, continuing the mark around onto the back of his hand, ending up at the beginning, a complete circle of its own.

The blood hissed as it came out. Harry stared. There was a gold sparkle on it, like the star he had created to tell him of the correct moment. He wondered if it came from his own power or his bond with Hogwarts, or the ritual itself. He wondered what it would do to the ritual.

It was a bit late to worry about that now. Harry took a deep breath and squeezed down on his hand, and especially the wound, with more of his magic, making the blood spray out in a high, leaping fountain. It fell on the circle, and immediately began to run along it, as if the circle was a much deeper groove than Harry had made it. The golden sparkle dimmed, and then reappeared, dancing on top of the blood like flames of St. Elmo's Fire.

Harry tilted his head back and regarded the moon. He felt the blood flow around the entire circle, meeting itself on either side, at the precise moment as the moon reached its apogee. His body shuddered with the power and the rightness of the magic, the echoes between earth and sky.

He focused his will into a reaching lance, and whispered aloud, "The enemy who touched these." He held up the two photographs Malfoy had given him and tossed them into the air, casting an _Incendio _at the same time.

The fire turned yellow at once, even though Harry had called only ordinary scarlet flames, and the golden power yearned upwards from the blood to join it. For a moment, the smoldering pictures hung in the air, connected by chains of fire. Then the chains began to whirl, and joined with rays of moonlight reaching down from above.

Harry held his breath as the chains writhed and formed into images, stained with gold the way that faces during Floo calls were covered with green. The top one, he didn't recognize, but others began to form around it, connected with thinner and longer chains, and those led to people he _did _know. Secretaries in the Minister. Other Aurors. Minister Tillipop.

The spell was showing him all the people connected to the plan to send the photographs out, with the one who had originated the plan at the top and in the middle.

Standing in the circle, his heart beating and his world expanding around him, Harry tossed his head back and laughed. Hogwarts's breeze encircled his hair, Hogwarts's grass ruffled at his feet, and there was a murmur of savage contentment and strength at his feet.

_If this is Dark magic, _Harry thought, _it's not all that bad._


	19. After the Ritual

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nineteen-After the Ritual_

Harry leaned back from the Pensieve and closed his eyes for a second. He had committed the memory of the ritual to it, and although the wisps left inside his brain had lost much of their original intensity, he was convinced that what was in the Pensieve was enough. Malfoy would recognize the face, or maybe Briseis would, and then they could hunt him down and figure out who he was and what he had to do with their campaigns.

"My Lord."

Harry snapped his eyes open and turned his head sharply before he could stop himself. He had told Briseis several times how much he disliked that title, but it seemed she was determined not to listen. He sighed. He couldn't say he had listened much to her lately, either. He leaned forwards with his hands clasped in front of him and his smile as welcoming as he could make it. "Yes? Do you have something for me?"

Briseis was carrying something on one wrist, he saw, blinking at it. It looked like a complicated arrangement of small silver wires and smaller stone medallions. She halted in the middle of his new office, and all the wires swung out so they were pointing straight at him.

Briseis considered him for a moment, then sat down on one of the stools Harry had Transfigured and shook her head. "I thought it would probably be you, that no one else could be performing Dark magic that powerful in your domain without you being aware of it, but I had to be sure."

Harry smiled at her. "Of course you had to be. Now, can you tell me what you were looking for?"

"Dark magic," Briseis said. "I felt the ritual take place last night, on Hogwarts grounds. I thought it was unusual, given that it was not only _your _realm, but a night of the full moon, a time traditionally powerful for Light magic. But that might not make a difference for a Dark Arts practitioner who had been a Light wizard until relatively recently." Her eyes were fastened on him. Harry wondered what she thought he might do, hide the truth from her, or run away, or deny it.

Perhaps because he chose to do none of those things, her jaw tumbled open when Harry nodded and said, "Yes, I meant to inform you of my intentions beforehand, but I was busy practicing the ritual and making sure I didn't get it wrong. Sorry."

Briseis studied him. "It was a ritual that needed the full moon to work, my lord?" she asked at last. "There are only a limited number of those."

_No, there aren't, _Harry thought, startled, and then realized that this was another test, of sorts. She was spreading a trap for him, seeing whether he would agree with her and hide the truth again, or reveal a woeful lack of magical knowledge. Harry didn't think Briseis would agree to stay and work for a stupid employer. She practically hovered on the edge of her seat, holding her breath.

"There are many," Harry said, and nodded at the Pensieve. "But in this case, the ritual was an attempt to reveal the face of an enemy, the one in the Ministry who sent out those pictures. Because the photos are old, and that means someone took them a long time ago. I want to know who at the Ministry knew I was being abused."

The last words came out in a rolling, growling tone he hadn't meant to give them, and Harry paused a little. He wondered if he should apologize, if there was the potential that he might scare her.

But Briseis rose up as if propelled from the stool by wings. She stood with her hands clasped together, her eyes fastened on him, and her grin so wide that Harry turned in spite of himself to look over his shoulder, wondering if Hogwarts had put on one of the whimsical magical shows it sometimes did now to get his attention.

"I wondered if you would ever start taking things _personally_," Briseis said, and clapped her hands together and bowed, giggling like a girl. "Forgive me-it just-it's so _nice _to serve someone who _is _going to take the insults that his enemies hurled at him personally and do something about it, to show them that they don't run the wizarding world."

Harry stared at her and said the first thing that came into his head, which she would probably resent. "I thought you wouldn't like it that I started taking things personally. Isn't it better when I react politically? You were angry because I hadn't told you about my past before the pictures appeared, and I wanted to keep it to myself because it was personal."

Briseis furiously shook her head, and didn't take her eyes off him at the same time. Harry had no idea how she did that. "I was angry because _I _didn't know about it, and so I couldn't help you plan for it, and I had no idea of how it would affect your behavior," she contradicted him in a low voice. "But I'd started to worry that you only ever did something for the sake of someone else. Which would mean you were helpless unless the people who sent the pictures attacked Mr. Malfoy or someone else you value."

Harry opened his mouth to ask how exactly she thought he valued _Mr. _Malfoy, but Briseis was sweeping on. "But you have a personal sense of insult, too! You'll react in the future when they try to hurt you!" She abruptly blushed, and clasped her hands to her mouth, shaking a little. "Sorry. I _am _sorry. But it's so _exciting _to know that you're finally going to retaliate, and I get to be there and _watch_."

Harry eyed her. "What do you think I'm going to do with my enemy once I've identified him? Raze the Ministry to the ground?"

"You have the power to," Briseis said. "You performed that ritual last night-"

"With the power of the moon helping me, and with the help of my blood," Harry said. Briseis just smiled at the mention of blood, which Harry knew most of his friends wouldn't have. "That doesn't mean I can do _anything_. It means I can do some things, though," he had to admit.

"But you'll do things now," Briseis said with satisfaction that ended in a little sigh. "That's what I wondered." She cocked her head to the side, eyes gleaming. "I wondered why you were keeping so quiet the last four days. But you were getting ready to aim at a target, weren't you? What _are _you going to do now that you know who he is?"

"I don't know his name," Harry said, hedging, and knowing he was hedging. But he really didn't want to make a promise to Briseis, or move fast, without more information about who this man was and what his name was. He thought it likely that it was information only Malfoy could give him. "The ritual only showed me his face. Once I know, then yes, I promise I'll move fast enough to satisfy you."

"I wasn't asking about the speed, My Lord," Briseis said, the capital letters so obvious that Harry could have heard them if he'd never met her before. "I was asking about what you would _do_, My Lord."

Harry settled back with a little sigh. He had to admit there were political considerations, ways to punish the man who had known he was being abused that might not alienate the public and the Ministry further from him-

But, when he thought about it, was that really a primary consideration? He had done the best he could not to alienate them, and it hadn't worked. They still reacted, at least some of them, as though he was an evil murdering Dark Lord, even before he had had any of the fun of evil murdering.

_Maybe what should matter is what can help _us, _rather than what would make everyone else calm and accepting. The problem with calm and accepting is that it probably doesn't exist anyway._

He faced Briseis and said, "I'm going to get revenge."

She looked as if she'd like to swoop around the room, but instead firmed her jaw and asked, "How?"

"That will have to await the suggestions of Malfoy and others," Harry said. He added, as he saw the spark dim in her eyes a little, "But there will be definitely be revenge. I just don't want it to hurt Malfoy's campaign in any way."

_Great, now I have to promise my political adviser not to take her toys away._

"I can see that," Briseis said, the lines in her face all as sharp as if her expression was made of creased linen. "But I think you should talk to him soon. It's been almost five days since those photographs were released, and you haven't done anything that the public knows about." She left the room with one more sharp glance at him, her mouth opening as if she wanted to add something else but couldn't think of anything.

Harry sighed and sat down at his desk again. What kind of revenge _could _he take, given that it would have to depend on Malfoy's advice and Briseis's and maybe even Hermione's? He had spoken with his friends since the pictures were published, but all of them were awkward with each other. Hermione seemed to think she should have asked more about the Dursleys before this, Ron knew that Harry didn't want to talk about them even now and made chattering small talk that irritated both Harry and Hermione, and Harry wavered between telling them about Malfoy and keeping that secret.

_Talking with Malfoy will be a relief. _He knew Malfoy had had some kind of dinner party last night that he expected to produce political results.

Harry had to laugh a little, even as the chair arm beside him grew soft and flexible, Hogwarts's attempt to comfort him by making a snake. Harry stroked its back and shook his head.

_Who knew that I would ever accept Malfoy as a source of comfort? _

* * *

Draco smiled as he stepped from the most heavily warded Floo of the Manor into Hogwarts. The dinner party had gone _exceptionally _well last night. He had managed to cast dollops of doubt into the common opinions about Harry's actions, Harry's reputation, and Minister Tillipop's sanity. The fewer people who believed the _Daily Prophet _in general, the better, he felt. Even if the paper began to report accurately on some of the things he and Harry did, they could use readers who thought more skeptically and critically.

"Malfoy?"

Draco blinked and turned around. He had come into Harry's office, but he hadn't seen him right away. He was seated with his feet up on his desk, flicking through a collection of papers. Draco drifted towards him, trying to see the papers without being obvious. It must not have worked, because Harry grinned at him and held them out.

"I had Briseis do some research for me," he said. "Punishments in the wizarding world for adults who knew that a child was being abused and did nothing."

Draco made a hungry noise in spite of himself, and reached for them. In his hand, they looked as if Harry had already thumbed through them once, although having met Briseis, Draco knew she might have done the same thing. Draco noted, approvingly, that some of the punishments involved spells thought to be Dark when practiced outside the Aurors. Harry could use some more practice in Dark magic if he was going to call himself a Dark Lord. When a serious challenge came, he had to be able to back up his response with more than sheer power.

"You look happy."

Draco smiled at him, seeing no need to hide it. "I am. My party went well, and you're finally moving to defend yourself in a proper way."

Harry rolled his eyes and leaned back against the chair. "You'd think not so many people would be interested in that," he muttered. "Yes, I do know that I'm going to get revenge, but that's a personal thing. You might not even know what I decide to do, in the end, or what effect it has on our enemies."

"But they are _our _enemies," Draco said. "And they tried to involve me in hurting you. Even if you decide that you need to keep the information secret from Briseis and your friends, I'm hopeful that you'll tell me. That you'll want to."

Harry regarded him for a single moment with bright eyes, then ducked his head and said, "Well. We'll see. For the moment, I need you to look into the Pensieve where I've captured the memories of the ritual and tell me who our enemies actually _are. _I recognized some of the faces conjured by the ritual, but not all of them."

Draco blinked as he lowered his head towards the Pensieve. "Faces?" The ritual normally produced only one.

Harry smiled slightly at him, and his magic rose and eddied around him, the stones of Hogwarts rippling as if liquid. "Yes. It seems that my power, or my bond with Hogwarts, produced greater results than I thought I'd get."

Draco plunged his head into the Pensieve without waiting, or asking if Harry wanted to accompany him. He wanted to learn what was going on too badly even to wait as a courtesy.

He found himself on the outer side of a circle in which Harry stood, thrumming with power. Draco stared at him in shock. There was a slight blurring and wavering over Harry's face, as though he had distorted cheeks and extra hair along the sides of his head. Draco knew it must be caused by the power he was channeling, but he'd never seen anything like it.

It took him another few seconds to rip his eyes away from Harry and concentrate on what he had come to see, the faces.

There was indeed a pyramid of faces floating in front of Harry, linked by golden chains of power. It was hard for Draco to determine if the chains were made of fire or light, and after a moment, he gave up trying. What was important was that the chains were _there, _and as much a unique product of the ritual as the multiple faces themselves.

Draco wondered absently if there was any way of measuring how powerful Harry's magic was. Or perhaps it was only this strong because he had conducted the ritual on the grounds of Hogwarts, and it would suffer a loss elsewhere.

_It might be important to know that._

For now, though, the ritual was complete and an answer was waiting. Draco need only stare in admiration at Harry's power. And walk to the point outside the circle of blood and magic where he could see the face at the top of the pyramid. He needed no one to explain the arrangement to him, that the one floating there would be the one most directly linked to the pictures Harry had burned.

He saw the face-an unremarkable, brown-eyed wizard with butter-yellow hair-and his throat tightened painfully, and the constriction in his chest was bad enough that he put a hand up to his heart. But he knew that he wasn't having a heart attack.

A few seconds later, he was out of the Pensieve, his breath slowing rapidly. Harry leaned in towards him, one hand on Draco's arm as though he thought he might need to support him. And never mind that Draco was already sitting down.

"It was someone you knew, someone you didn't expect to see," Harry said quietly, eyes fastened on him. "Who?"

_Well, his concern for me must not be all that deep, if he's asking that question rather than if I'm all right, _Draco thought, and his breathing and his gaze both steadied. He had a decision to make now. He _would _make it.

On one side lay years of friendship, loyalty, secrets that no one had ever tried to take back from him even though he technically wasn't supposed to know them. On the other side lay his future, the campaign he might build, and Harry.

Draco made the choice more easily than he had thought he might, in the end. After all, if the person behind that glamour of the ordinary wizard had wanted Draco to remain loyal, she shouldn't have sent him the photos in the first place. Draco thought now it was a warning of what she would do, more than a threat-a warning to desert Harry and ally himself with someone else. She couldn't have anticipated that he would have no idea what the photos meant and would show them to Harry the first chance he got.

Draco sat up, fixed his eyes on Harry, and said, "The wizard at the top of the pyramid goes by the name Caelum Seerwood. A minor flunkey in the Ministry, someone you would walk past without noticing him on most ordinary days."

Harry blinked a little. "Goes by? Who is he really, then?"

_Good boy. He doesn't need everything spilled out for him, after all. _Draco reached out and took Harry's hand, and Harry didn't try to pull it back. He crouched down beside Draco's chair, instead, tracing Draco's face with his eyes, and waited for the answer.

"A disguise for the witch who, currently, wears the legal name Gioia Fifernum." Harry only blinked at him, and Draco had to add, making his betrayal and repayment for her betrayal both complete, "Blaise Zabini's mother."


	20. Blow the Trumpets

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Blow the Trumpets_

The words hit Harry harder than he had expected. Not that he knew Gioia Fifernum, or her alias, either. But he had seen the way Malfoy paused before he said the name, even though he didn't think Malfoy had noticed him watching, and it was obvious how hard it was for him.

Harry hesitated, then put a hand on Malfoy's shoulder. At the same time, the back of the conjured chair Malfoy sat in curled around his other shoulder like an arm. Malfoy started and looked up at Harry, blinking.

"I hope you realize that I had no knowledge of this, and I don't think Blaise did, either," he said, almost formally. "Gioia could have no idea that the pictures would arrive when her son was with me. For that matter, I'm not sure she knows he's supporting me, although it might make more sense if she did. Blaise likes to keep secrets like that."

Harry shook his head, smiling in spite of himself. Malfoy always twisted things back so that everything was about Harry, his past or his feelings or what he felt about kissing. For once, Harry was going to make it so that Malfoy could think about himself.

"I was wondering what _you _felt," he told him. "Not blaming you. Won't she be upset that you told me?"

Malfoy closed his eyes in a long, slow blink. Then he said, "Well. Yes. If she figures it out."

"She already knows more than most people do, either that you're supporting me or that we're considering doing things together," Harry pointed out. "She wouldn't have sent the pictures to you otherwise. And I'm _not _accusing Zabini of betraying you," he added, because Malfoy's mouth had opened. "The point is that she's pretty smart, but not many people know what lies behind her alias, do they? So if we go after her openly, then she'll be able to reckon that you told."

Malfoy blinked. "Yes," he said at last, as if testing the temperature of water before jumping in. "But if you intend to take revenge, as you _told _me you did-" he glared at Harry, apparently ready to take it as a personal offense if Harry retracted that promise "-then we can't avoid the knowledge coming out."

Harry smiled pleasantly. "Not if the revenge was personal and private." He held up his hand before Malfoy could protest. "In the meantime, I find myself quite as angry at her for putting you into this position where you had to choose who to betray, her or me, as I am at the fact that she sent the pictures to the paper."

Malfoy watched him as if he was mental. Well, maybe he was, to someone who had to expect that there was no way Harry would value him like that, Harry thought, and smiled at Malfoy again. "That's why I want the revenge to be private, if you think it would prevent her from finding out that you told me who she was."

Malfoy opened his mouth, then closed it again, and looked thoughtfully at the far wall. Harry didn't turn to see what he was looking at. He knew there would be nothing there, or at least nothing visible to other eyes. His hand and the "arm" on the back of the conjured chair both remained comfortingly holding Malfoy, though.

Malfoy finally looked up. Harry found himself bending close, awaiting his answer with a carefully held breath. It was good that Briseis seemed to approve of Harry allying himself more closely with Malfoy, because Harry wasn't sure at this point that he could pull back, no matter what his adviser told him.

* * *

_He wants to spare me._

It was not perhaps _unexpected, _given the way Draco was coming to know Harry, but the actual confirmation of it made exhilaration spin through his veins. He remained sitting because he thought his legs would be weak if he stood up now.

And he thought about the question Harry had poised to him, because if there was a way they could punish Gioia but also keep her convinced that Harry had figured out the truth for himself, they could maintain Draco as a spy inside her defenses. Not to mention keeping Blaise out of the same awkward place Draco had been put in.

"If you tell her that your own power discovered it for you, that you performed another ritual that revealed the truth..." Draco breathed.

"Is there such a thing?" Harry blinked and leaned back further to look into his eyes. Draco could feel the power throbbing through the floor and the back of the chair, and he was sure that Harry's magic would tell him in an instant if Draco lied.

"Oh, legends, from back in the days of Merlin," Draco said, flipping a hand. "No wizard has had the power to perform the rituals in centuries, and frankly, I'm not sure the rituals actually existed in the forms they're recorded. Details were probably lost, the forms broken. But if any wizard is strong enough to perform them, I think it's you." He grinned up at Harry, and laughed a little as Harry pretended to preen. "And that means that Gioia is likely to believe that you _could. _That you figured it out by yourself."

"True," Harry said. "That _might _work. Although it would deprive you of the delight of watching the punishment."

Draco had to close his eyes for a moment. "Perhaps you could bring me along under your Invisibility Cloak?" he asked, trying to behave as though he had never doubted for a moment that Harry would take Draco with him. "Or a Disillusionment Charm?"

"That's a possibility," Harry said, and his smile was far darker than it had been so far. "In fact, I was considering punishing her in the Ministry, but that might not be the best idea. There are too many spells there that could detect the use of Dark magic. But if I bring her here, then she would have a completely secure environment to fret in, and I would have the freedom to do whatever I want, and you could have your choice of places to watch it from."

Draco suspected the expression on his face spoke for him, but just in case it didn't, he nodded and murmured, "Yes, yes, _please_."

Harry paused, and then stood up and walked across the room towards him again. Draco watched him in silence, feeling as though anything might happen, and it would be exhilarating.

Harry leaned over him and looked into his eyes. Draco reminded himself that Harry didn't have magic that could _really _read his soul, that that had just been a pretense for Skeeter, and looked back.

Then the _anything _happened, and Harry bent down and kissed him.

Draco sighed into the kiss, hooking his fingers up and around through Harry's hair. He even scratched the nape of Harry's neck with his fingernails, not feeling bad, because it made Harry shudder and press closer. Draco would have scratched without that, of course, but when it could bring him _and _Harry pleasure both at once, that was all the more reason to pursue it.

"You taste wonderful," Harry said, pulling away and gently detaching Draco's hand from the back of his neck. "Although how much of that is your natural taste, and how much comes from the knowledge that you really want to watch…"

"There's only one way to be sure of how much of it is from each," Draco said, and managed to hold the smile off his face, although his heart was going so mad.

Harry looked at him and waited. A smile was pulling at the corners of his own lips, although Draco saw more of it in the light in his eyes.

"To experiment a _lot_," Draco said, "and keep track of what comes from which place."

Harry moved with unexpected speed, and kissed him again. Draco grabbed his shoulders, more than happy to surrender and go along with it. He wouldn't have surrendered so readily to most people, would have spent more time calculating the angles and the power dynamics, but Harry wasn't most people.

* * *

Harry lost track of how long they spent in the kiss. Long enough for Hogwarts to adjust the floor so that he could lean over and snog Malfoy without causing any pain to his neck, anyway. And his fingers tangled pleasantly in Malfoy's hair by the time he pulled back, and Malfoy's lips were the most _interesting _shade of red…

_And I really ought to stop calling him Malfoy and pretending that this isn't personal._

Harry licked his lips and said, "Well, _Draco, _I suppose I should go to the Ministry and collect Fifernum before she starts deciding that my lack of action so far means something dangerous."

Draco took long seconds to answer him, breathing deeply instead and holding one hand up in front of his lips as though he wanted to check the warmth of his own breath. Harry stared at him, and a strange sensation moved in him, through the pit of his stomach and towards his throat. He didn't recognize it at first. Why should he? He had never felt anything like it in the few relationships he'd had with other people so far.

_Power. _That he could take someone as self-confident and strong as Draco and reduce him to this state…

Harry licked his lips and bit back the temptation to "experiment" some more with that power. What he had said was true. Fifernum might decide at any second, either out of paranoia or because of the dinner party Draco had held, that he and Harry were still allies, and her ploy had failed. Harry did need to get over there and capture her.

Draco opened his eyes at last, his hands clasping the arms of the chair. "And you're going to let me watch?" he asked. "Alone?"

Harry would have said that he had more or less promised Briseis that she could watch, too, but faced with the wall of devouring light in Draco's eyes, he knew he was going to break that promise. Briseis would just have to be content with a Pensieve memory.

Maybe a lot of people would have to be, Harry thought, pausing and thinking as an idea struck him. It was _possible. _He would have to check into how legal it was. Or he could just be the Dark Lord he was intending to be today, when he kidnapped a woman without due legal process, and took his revenge according to the way the ancient statutes said he could.

_The nice thing about being a Dark Lord is that you have no one to report to._

"Yes," he said. "Alone. And take this." He reached out his arm and passed it through the air, and a hole opened in the stone of the walls, a square tunnel down to his personal quarters just big enough for the object he had summoned. The Invisibility Cloak was resting over his shoulder by the time he lowered his arm. Harry offered it to Draco, smugly pleased with the way Draco stared and barely touched the starlit cloth of the Cloak. "No one can see through this. It's one of the Deathly Hallows."

Draco blinked at him. "You really want to be that open with the information?"

Harry laughed, nearly as giddy at the realization that pounded in his head as he had been at the ritual last night. "Yes, actually. Because who has the power to take it away from me? Or keep it safe and hidden if they did take it?"

Slowly, Draco accepted it, wound it around his shoulders, and half-vanished where he sat. He didn't seem to notice the way the chair shifted, still outlining his form, trying to make him visible to Harry, Hogwarts's master, no matter what happened.

He bowed. "You can trust _me _to take good care of it."

_Unlike other people? _Harry thought, but he had a smile for Draco, and since the only other person who had really been taking care of his Cloak was himself, he didn't need to snap the way he wanted to. He waved to Draco instead and turned in place, reaching out to the Ministry. He didn't know exactly where Fifernum was, but he didn't need to. When he arrived in the Ministry, past the snapped anti-Apparition wards, then he would find her easily enough.

The wards fought him harder than he'd expected, shuddering with the hum and thrum of ancient magic. Harry collapsed them forcibly, and laughed a little when he realized the reason for some of their resistance: they'd been reinforced within the last few weeks by new ones.

The Ministry wanted to keep the new Dark Lord out, did they?

_Too bad for them that it isn't an option. _

Harry arrived in the middle of a corridor, transparent shards of magic still tumbling around him. He heard gasps, and shook his head to make sure that his hair fell off to the sides and bared his scar. He didn't want there to be any doubt about who was here and about to change their lives.

"I hope that you can guide me to Gioia Fifernum," he called out. "Because I might have to dangle you upside down until you spill your secrets if you don't."

Spells sped towards him.

It seemed like a long time since Harry had used his wand, but it was easy, now, to hold it up and murmur, "_Protego_." Easier than ever, really, since he was no longer fighting to keep his proclivities secret. He'd constantly had to suppress his magic when he worked as an Auror for the Ministry, because it wouldn't do to be too powerful. They would start asking things of him that they had no right to ask.

The Shield Charm rained into being in front of him, small silver sparkles and speckles of magic collecting and coalescing. Harry raised an eyebrow. It had never been that way before, and he hadn't specifically ordered it to be that way this time.

But it didn't seem to matter. It still stopped the curses that were racing towards him; they earthed themselves in sparks of their own, red and green and blue, against the barrier. Harry watched them calmly from inside the shield, and then raised his wand and put all his power behind the spell as he whispered, "_Point Me _Gioia Fifernum."

The wand spun, and Harry worried for a second that he might have put too much power behind it or something, and would shatter the holly wood and the phoenix feather core. But it eventually dived out of his hands and sped through the walls, digging a hole through the stone and dirt, aiming straight where it was going. Harry strolled after it, finding the exit wounds on the far side of the walls, and heading for an office in a discreet corridor off the Minister's. Harry remembered passing it when he was still inside the bounds of the Light, but never entering it.

The door that he came to had a hole through the center of the wood panel, where the wand had smashed its passage. Harry tapped the door with his fist, let pure power take care of the nasty hexes waiting to spring on whoever came in here uninvited, and stepped in as the door swung hollowly inwards.

The wizard with brown eyes and yellow hair that Harry had seen at the top of the pyramid when he used the ritual stood leaning against the far wall, his hands spread out over the stone. Harry's wand hummed in front of his throat, holding him there. Every time he tried to step away or even breathe too deeply, the wand jabbed again.

Harry hesitated for just a second. The disguise was perfect. He wondered for a second if Draco was wrong. Maybe Zabini's mum had told him that she was this wizard, but it was really just an ordinary person after all.

But when Harry looked closely enough, he could make out the halo of a glamour around her face. He clenched one hand into a fist, and the magic began to pulse and lift, pulling away from the face like a leather mask. Harry didn't try to dissipate it, just formed it into a ball that he pushed into the air over Fifernum's desk. It hung there, glowing.

Beneath stood a woman with dark skin and hair and eyes. Only the eyes resembled her disguise at all, and they were a darker brown. Her hair hung down below her waist, and she had perfectly fitted robes that Harry thought even Hermione would have admired.

She straightened up and gave him a single look of searing contempt. "So you figured it out," she murmured, voice low. "Did you think to find a welcome here?"

"I thought you probably knew the truth about those pictures," Harry said. His voice sounded odd in his own ears, as hollow as that hole in the center of Fifernum's door. "Because there would be no reason for you to think that sending them would hurt me, otherwise. How long did you know about them?" Fifernum stood looking at him, nothing on her face, and Harry added a different question. "Did you know that I was being abused?"

Fifernum's eyes flickered like a candleflame. Once, but it was enough.

"I _see_," Harry said, and clapped his hands down on either side of him, and snatched her away with him as he Apparated back to Hogwarts.


	21. Temptation Falls

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-One—Temptation Falls_

Draco barely had time to draw the Cloak around himself before Harry and Blaise's mum appeared in front of him. He had lost more time than he thought in touching the Cloak and wondering if it really was one of the Deathly Hallows, in running his fingers through the cloak's collar and imagining the adventures Harry must have gone through in Hogwarts while covered by it.

And now he was master of the place where he had had all those adventures.

Then the walls quivered and Draco saw one flat stone at his feet lengthen and stretch its neck up like a hunting hound, and he swung the Cloak around his shoulders and ducked his head. Harry was there in the next instant, without the characteristic crack of Apparition. He hadn't made a sound when he walked through Draco's wards either, Draco remembered. Perhaps it wasn't exactly Apparition that he had done to get himself and Fifernum back inside.

Fifernum stood in front of Harry, her arms bound behind her back by a shifting silver cord that looked as if it was made of flowing mercury. She watched Harry without expression, her eyelids closed enough that it was hard to tell what she was looking at. Draco swallowed painfully. He had watched Blaise wear that same expression when he was trying to get out of trouble that he knew he'd deserved.

"You cannot touch me under the law," Fifernum said.

"I don't need to touch you, not if you can prove a few simple things to me," Harry said, and there was a change in the room. Draco didn't know how to describe it, except that fog seemed to tighten around his throat, and it felt as though he was going to sweat more heavily than usual. "Did you know that I was abused before you came across those pictures?"

"No." Fifernum spoke in a tone as clear and sweet as an opera singer's, not looking away from Harry as he began to pace in front of her.

"Did you know that I was abused _when _you came across those pictures?"

"No." Fifernum's voice seemed a bit more choked this time, and she cleared her throat. "But the information in the file that accompanied the pictures made it clear."

A second later, she blinked and touched her neck. Draco knew the sensation. He thought she hadn't meant to say _that _much, but the words had squeezed out of her whether she wanted them to come or not.

Draco had some idea of how Harry had changed the air in the room then, and he shivered convulsively, glad for the heavy material of the Cloak that flowed and draped around him.

"Who made that file?" Harry hissed the words out at the end, and the silver cord clapped Fifernum's elbows together. Fifernum staggered, caught herself, and answered without falling or looking away from Harry.

"Minister Fudge, who left the position some years ago."

Draco didn't bother studying Fifernum's expression this time. He looked at Harry as the words died in the air, and saw the way Harry was drawing into himself, how the stones under his feet tried to get between his shoes and his toes to actually touch bare skin, how he gave one great flinch that seemed to grip him from heart to head before he shook his head again and settled into glaring at Fifernum.

_That's not a shock to him. But he hated that it was going on this long._

"Why put the file together at all?" Harry's voice was low, charged, and he went back to prowling, but this time in a circle around Fifernum instead of just in front of her. She didn't bother to turn her head to keep track of him. It was probably to show that she was cooler and stronger than Harry had thought her, but Draco wondered if she could see the miniature lightning storm that had started to brew in the air behind Harry's neck.

"I don't know the exact purpose," Fifernum murmured. "The file had a lot of partial evidence, interviews with Muggle neighbors and the like. They seemed to think that you were attending something called the St. Brutus's School for Incurably Criminal Boys."

Draco blinked. _That _part had been left out of the recitations that Harry had given him.

"But there were notes that made me think he'd put it together for political ammunition against you, in case you showed any interest in trying to dictate how the Ministry should respond to the Dark Lord." Fifernum bit her lip a moment later, but the words went on spilling out anyway. "He didn't think he would be driven from office before that happened."

"Of course not," Harry muttered. "Dolt thought he would last forever. And why not? People _elected _him in the first place, after all."

_Elected a man who knew I was abused, and chose to do nothing about it. _Draco could hear the undertone to the words, as bitter as smoke. He would have said something comforting, but there was no way that wouldn't have revealed his presence to Fifernum. He hung onto the Cloak and tried to think support and strength to Harry instead.

"I chose to make use of it," Fifernum said, and choked. "What did you _do_?"

"Made it impossible for you to lie to me." Harry stared at her, the motion of his neck as slender and graceful as a snake raising its head out of the mud. "And for you to have to volunteer information you have on the subject, even if I don't ask you a question."

"There's no spell that can do that," Fifernum whispered back, never letting Harry's gaze go. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have had to invent Veritaserum."

Harry's smile was terrifying in its gentleness. "What makes you think that the newly declared Dark Lord needs to use a wand anymore?"

Fifernum would have retreated, but the quicksilver cord around her wrists prevented that. She tried to make up for it by standing tall and looking down her nose at Harry, but Draco could have told her that wouldn't really work. Harry looked back at her, and Fifernum was the one who turned away first.

"I want to know more about why you chose to make use of that file, and how long you knew it was there." Harry stood still again, his gaze so focused that Fifernum shivered even though she wasn't meeting it anymore. "Did you know that you might have to tell other people about the abuse?"

"I used it—as a weapon." Fifernum was choking now, trying to bite her tongue and the insides of her cheeks, but it didn't matter, Draco saw. The words were coming. "I knew I would use it as a weapon. I knew about it for several years. I didn't think I would have to use it so soon, though. Someday, when you became more influential in the Ministry. Not now."

Draco nodded under the Cloak. Fifernum, along with everyone else, had likely never seen Harry moving outside the Ministry and establishing a power base of his own.

"Did you not care?" Harry's voice flicked out, and Fifernum moved her head to the side as if they had been a literal lash that had stung her on the cheek.

"I," she said, stopping.

Harry took a single step, and stopped. "You knew about it while I was still living with the Dursleys," he said, and Fifernum's head bobbed as though someone was pushing on her neck from behind. "Did you never think to tell someone who would look into it and have it stopped? Did you?"

Fifernum's eyes slid shut. Her voice was a low gasp. "I knew that you were in Gryffindor House and followed Headmaster Dumbledore blindly. Whether or not we chose to join with the—the Dark Lord, I knew that you would end up our political enemy someday. That means that I _had _to keep it in reserve as a weapon."

Harry was silent and still. Draco wished he could move and get a better glimpse of his face, because Harry stood with his head mostly turned away from Draco, but he didn't dare. There was the chance that Fifernum would hear him moving and see the slight ripple of the Cloak no matter how careful Draco was.

And Draco didn't want anyone to know he was watching this. It had turned out to be more an opening of old wounds for Harry than punishment for someone who had known about the abuse.

Harry finally turned his head and asked a question that Draco hadn't anticipated. "If the abuse was happening to someone else, someone you knew, or the child of someone you knew, someone in Slytherin, would you have rescued them?"

Fifernum blinked at him, and her answer slid out without as much effort as it would have had she fought it. "It would have depended on how much of an advantage and ally to our family they could be in the future."

Harry nodded once, and stepped back. Draco saw lazy dark swirls traveling through the stones at his feet. This time, he didn't think those came from the stones reaching out to comfort Harry, in any way.

The magic this time was a twisting, crushing force, although Draco knew the heavy yoke on his neck wouldn't break it, because it wasn't aiming for him. For Fifernum, though…

Draco watched as her eyes widened and her mouth opened, although nothing but a puff of air emerged. Harry took a step towards her and gestured with one hand, twisting it sharply through no motion Draco knew. He suspected that Harry didn't really know, either, that he was reaching for the magic and making it do what he wanted rather than coming up with a spell that fit the situation.

And in the end, the pressure grew so severe that Draco's eyes slid shut despite himself. He stood there, shivering, and wondering what he would say if Harry asked him what he thought of the punishment later.

As it turned out, though, Harry announced the punishment, in a voice that could have cracked glaciers, so Draco didn't need to watch.

* * *

There was such darkness in Harry's heart, the kind of clanging and shouting darkness that he had felt when he successfully used the Unforgivables. He could have used them now, he knew, without a wand, without anything but the buildup of the power he had already sunk into Hogwarts. And he could have made Fifernum suffer the convulsions of the Cruciatus without going mad, could have commanded her under the Imperius Curse so that she knew exactly what she was doing but had no choice about doing it anyway, and could have stretched the Killing Curse out for moment after moment, so that she always knew what was coming.

He _could _have done that. He wanted to.

But in the end, none of those were personal enough. And he hadn't forgotten that he had an audience, that Draco might suffer at the sight of the curses he'd seen performed over and over again in the Manor during the war.

So Harry reached out in a different direction, towards something he could barely sense, but which was _there_. Not Fifernum's magical core, although that would end up entwining itself in the spell, because it had to. No, to something beyond that, something faint and flickering, a shadow on ice, a dancing blade.

He reached it, and grasped it. He felt the jolt that traveled through Fifernum, inside her and not outside, as Harry took hold of her soul.

"You are going to travel to Privet Drive in sleep now," Harry whispered. "Every night, you will be there, in that house where I was abused, every hour, unsleeping, unable to do anything but sit in that cupboard or that room. And that's where your soul is going to go after death, no peace, no sight but that house for the rest of eternity—unless you do something while you're still alive."

"What?" Fifernum spoke it in a faint gasp, and Harry wasn't sure where he heard that voice, inside or outside. He opened his eyes, which he hadn't realized were closed, and watched her. Her head was hanging a little, and she shivered. She looked as though she would have preferred the Cruciatus.

"First," Harry said, "you're going to make me a promise that you won't ever move against me politically, and neither will anyone in your family."

"I promise. I promise. I—"

Harry cut her off. He knew that she would only go on repeating the words if he didn't. "Very well. If you break that promise, then I will know, and the condition will return."

It took a long moment, and it was hard to tell given how much her head was hanging in general, but Fifernum did nod.

"Good," Harry said, and fought to keep his lip from curling. "Second, you will give me the memory of who you told about the abuse, who you had send the pictures, what you hoped to accomplish with them, any meetings you held about them—everything concerning them."

It took longer this time, but memories started to flood Fifernum's mind. Harry grabbed them greedily with his own mental eyes, knowing that he could put them into a Pensieve later and more fully absorb them.

"Third," Harry said, and lowered his voice into a hiss so that it would press all the more strongly into Fifernum's ears, "you are going to find out about other magical children who are abused. Whether they live with Muggles or not. Whether they're the children of people who can give you an _advantage _or not. It's too late for me, but it's not too late for them. When you find out, you are going to send me an owl immediately. Any time of the day or night, whether you're tired or hungry or anything else. Do you _understand_?"

Fifernum took the longest over this. Harry waited. It could be reluctance, or moral doubt, but he thought it was simply because he had taken her a long way away from herself, into fear and the knowledge that she would have to change, and it took her a while to find her way back.

"I promise," she whispered at last. "I will do it. Any time of the day or night." She did lift her head and gasp one question. "What if I'm not sure about whether or not they're being abused?"

"Then you send me an owl with all the details you know," Harry said, tightening his grip on her soul and seeing her eyes flood white, "and you send along a vial with Pensieve memories so I can determine for myself."

Fifernum nodded as though lead weights hung around her neck, and Harry released her soul and the bonds on her wrists. He knew it was possible that she could break her promises, but he didn't think so. She had already fulfilled one of them.

And the chains he saw on her soul now, insubstantial, steel-colored things that ranged around her body and entwined her neck and hair, would serve as more than enough insurance, should she break her word.

"Thank you," Fifernum said.

Harry raised his eyebrows. He had wanted to send her back to the Ministry and be rid of her, but this was unexpected enough to make him pause. "What do you mean? For what?"

Fifernum's head came up slowly, and she blinked at him as though the chains were on her eyelids, too. Finally, she managed to say, "For—sparing my life."

Harry choked to keep the words he wanted from escaping, that taking her life would have been worth little compared to what she could do now that she was still alive, and nodded curtly. "Take my Floo back to the Ministry," he said. "Go wherever you want and come up with whatever explanation for my appearance there that you want. But keep in mind what betraying me will mean." The chains around her neck gave an ominous rattle.

Fifernum nodded to him and limped across the room. Harry waited until the fireplace had flared and she was gone before he turned towards the corner where Draco hid under the Invisibility Cloak. Harry couldn't even remember when he had realized that Draco was there. He seemed to have always known.

Draco whipped the Cloak off over his head and stared at Harry for a long time. Then he shook his head a little and whispered, "I thought you didn't have magic that could touch the soul."

"I didn't know I did," Harry admitted.

Draco stared at him some more. Then he asked in a subdued tone, "That means—you didn't know if you could do that, but you reached out and fed magic into your hands until you could?"

Harry nodded, pleased that Draco had described it so exactly. It saved him from having to explain it to Draco himself. "Yes."

Draco looked at him in silence for long seconds, and then said, "You were less bloody than I expected."

"This is the kind of punishment that will help others," Harry said shortly. "Not just me. Although making her visit Privet Drive in her sleep every night is revenge for me."

Draco nodded. He seemed distracted by something. _Probably my power, _Harry thought. _He's probably afraid of me now. _There was a dull pulse in his temples at the thought.

"I should go," Draco said quietly, handing the Cloak back to him. "There were matters Rosenthal wanted to discuss with me today, and firecalls I should make to some of the people who were at the party last night."

But he lingered, one hand on the stone, until Harry smiled at him and came over to kiss him. "Thank you for watching that," he said. "I think it—helped."

Draco nodded, and vanished out of Hogwarts in a rush of flame. That made Harry sit down and stare at his hands and think about what Ron and Hermione would say when they heard.

_They'll probably be horrified. Hell, part of me is horrified, too._

But…

Harry swallowed. _I won't take it back. I made her pay for what she did, and I think the punishment is appropriate. _

_I could take it back. But I won't._

_I'm glad I did it._


	22. Announcements

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Two—Announcements_

Briseis gave a little sigh as she leaned backwards out of the Pensieve memories that Harry had gathered for her and let her watch. "That's not all she deserves, but it's more than I thought you would give her," she said to Harry, and smiled.

Harry smiled back. He had had just about enough of Gioia Fifernum, and wanted to move on. "What do you think we should do now?"

Briseis sat still for a few seconds, her eyes closed as though she was bathing in the warmth of the sun, and then sighed and began gathering up the parchments in front of her. "Lots of people want confirmation about whether you were really abused in the past," she said, keeping one eye on the papers and one on Harry. "There are dozens of reporters waiting for you to speak with them."

Harry made a sharp motion with one hand. If he was done with Fifernum, he was also done with talking about his past to people who wouldn't understand. "What else?"

"There was the strange message that Bill Weasley received," Briseis said, and blinked at the way he sat up. "What?"

"Why didn't you tell me about that at once?" Harry snapped, stretching out his hand for the parchment that Briseis obediently put into it.

"Because you were preoccupied," Briseis said, lowering her voice for emphasis, "and you would have either overreacted or stressed yourself out trying not to. Besides, he isn't in your inner circle of friends and allies. I judged the threat to him to be rather less than it would have been if a letter arrived for Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger."

Harry growled in acknowledgment of that, because it was the way she _would _think and the kind of thinking he had hired her for, and read the parchment through. It was a copy of the letter Bill had received, and other than the very precise address, showing the writer knew exactly where Shell Cottage was, it only had a single line, placed directly in the center of the parchment.

_You're next._

"I trust that you've used some of the money you asked me for to hire guards for Bill?" Harry asked, not looking up from the parchment, even though he'd memorized it by now.

"What do you take me for?" Briseis demanded. "Of course I did."

Harry glanced up at her. "I take you for a Slytherin who recognized that Bill isn't as close to me as my other friends and might have decided to protect them first."

Briseis blushed and looked down. "Yes," she said after a moment. "But being threatened gives him some more priority than he would have. There are guards on his house, and I have this." She held up her arm, and Harry squinted at the thick silver bracelet on her wrist a moment before he recognized it. It would link Briseis to a chosen guard's emotions, letting her know in an instant if anger or fear or pain flared there.

"How did you get that?" Harry asked, interested despite himself. "They were only available to the Aurors, last I heard."

Briseis shot him a superior glance. "Yes, unless you know the person who makes them."

Harry nodded, accepting that he really didn't have any right to ask further, and said, "Good. Then I think it's time we act." He tossed the parchment to Briseis, using his magic to make it arrow towards her as if he had folded it rather than fall. Briseis made a nearly belated snatch for it and slipped it back into the file folder she'd carried it in.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Begin interviews for professors," Harry said crisply. "We're going to open the school a week from today."

Briseis stared at him with her mouth open. "But you said that you would need more time than that to interview potential professors and contact the parents and students!" she protested.

Harry gave her a smile that made her eyes widen a little, although Harry didn't think she was truly afraid of him. "I discovered last night that I can alter the air in Hogwarts to make it impossible for someone to lie to me," he told her. "And interviewing them here will let me place binding conditions on them if I need to."

"What about informing the students?" Briseis was standing straight now, gaze fastened on him.

Harry held out his hand, and paper and stone and wood trembled towards him, letters already etching themselves on all the surfaces. Briseis put a protective hand on her files.

"I can do that," Harry said simply.

* * *

"I'm amazed that you can be ready this fast."

Rosenthal's voice was dry. Draco cast the final charm that would hold his hair in place—he wasn't about to trust to the wind on a day like this, when he would face Minister Tillipop in a supposedly unstructured "conversation"—and glanced at her over his shoulder. "What do you mean?" he asked, turning. His robes flowed with him, the way that Blaise would probably admire.

_Blaise, who might or might not forgive me once he finds out what Harry did to his mother. _It might not matter to Blaise that Draco had become involved only because Fifernum had sent those pictures to him. He could think that Draco should have chosen their old friendship instead of his new alliance with Harry.

"You told me how Potter punished a woman who had hurt him." Rosenthal stepped forwards, lowering her voice meaningfully. "I'm amazed that you can put those fascinating consequences from your mind and focus on mere politics."

Draco considered her for a moment, then swept her a bow. "I apologize if I seem to be attracted to Potter's power for its own sake," he said, while she flushed. "I didn't mean to be. I'll focus my mind on the campaign when I'm in the meetings and dinners and other things directly related to it. I did a good job with the last dinner party that we had, didn't I?"

Rosenthal's mouth relaxed again. "You did." She glanced out the window at the Manor's grass tossing in the wind. "We should Apparate soon, or we'll let Tillipop get there first, and I don't think you want that."

"No, indeed." Draco held out his arm, and Rosenthal laid her hand on it. They weren't the traditional kind of couple who would Apparate together to this gathering, but very little about this campaign was traditional, down to Draco's last name.

They walked smoothly out of the Manor, Apparated smoothly, and landed without undue staggering in the large meadow where Tillipop had wanted to meet. Draco looked around and saw most of the reporters he had expected, with Tillipop's hangers-on on one side and chairs set up for people who supported him on the other. He nodded and walked towards those chairs. Rosenthal followed.

Then it began to go _un_smoothly.

"Behold!" Tillipop said, standing and pointing one finger at Draco. "The traitor who would see our world go under the dominion of a Dark Lord!"

Draco widened his eyes and glanced around, placing one hand against his chest. He had expected an accusation of this kind, of course, sometime. Not everyone would be fooled by the article Skeeter had written about Harry being there only to intimidate Draco; there would be rumors of a secret alliance. Their best tactic was not to try and suppress those rumors, but to give people more interesting things to read about, something Draco had tried with his own manufactured accusations against Tillipop.

"What proof do you have of that, then?" Rosenthal asked, in the light tone she reserved for verbal duels in public. "And strange that we are greeted with it the moment we arrive, outside the formal structure of debate."

Draco only bowed his head as if in sorrowful recognition, watching from under his eyelashes and fringe as Tillipop stared around.

"There," Tillipop said, and Draco turned to look. A young woman was pushing her way forwards, her chin trembling, but her stare poisonous and firm as she stopped and looked at Draco. Draco had no idea who she was, although from the quality of her robes, she wasn't a pure-blood, and from her lack of quills and parchment, she wasn't a reporter. That left mostly people who worked in the Ministry.

"I saw the Dark Lord Potter come and take one of our best workers from the Ministry yesterday," she said. "And before he did, he mentioned the name of Malfoy."

_She's talking about Fifernum's kidnapping, _Draco decided, but her attempts to drive a wedge between him and Harry were pathetic. He knew Harry would never have mentioned the name of Malfoy. If he did someday decide that Draco was an unacceptable political risk, he would abandon him as directly as he had allied with him. No telling random people at the Ministry first.

"Who did he mention it to?" Draco asked, distant and uninterested.

The woman hadn't expected him to confront her like that. She stood up and brushed a hand down the front of her robe. Draco wondered if she was checking for dust, or a weapon. "Me," she said. "Among other people."

"Indeed." Draco nodded. "What is your name, miss?"

The woman shot an agonized look at Tillipop, who glared back at her and made a little circling motion with his finger. Draco wasn't surprised when the woman faced him, sighed and gulped in the same breath, and said, "Amicitia Sallow."

Draco nodded. "Well, of course, if you said it, one cannot question the validity of your word." Sallow flinched, and Draco smiled gently at her. "Nonetheless, I heard no one say that before now, and I had nothing to do with the kidnapping of anyone from the Ministry. And surely my word cannot be questioned, either?"

"Yes, it can," Tillipop announced, and waved one hand. Draco saw the shadows stir, and had to blink as Aurors stepped out of them. They had been hiding with a spell so sophisticated that he honestly hadn't noticed them before now. "There are several other people besides Miss Sallow who are prepared to testify to what Dark Lord Potter said. Enough for an arrest and to hold you in a cell for a few days."

_And give you time to spread other rumors? _Draco held back an angry laugh. _I don't think so._

"I will willingly take Veritaserum to prove that I had nothing to do with the kidnapping," he said. He ignored the way Rosenthal's fingers pressed into his arm. He was in so much trouble at the moment that he didn't think the offer to take Veritsaerum would put him into any more. "Right here, right now, in front of everyone, provided the legal conditions are met." He smiled at Tillipop, who stared at him as if Draco had broken the rules of a game. "Provided the Minister will _adhere _to these legal conditions."

"How dare you accuse me?" Tillipop squeaked, and puffed himself up. "I _never_—"

"There seems to be a great deal of accusation going on today," Draco said, and looked at the Aurors. "Do any of you have Veritaserum with you? We might as well handle this now and get it over with."

For a few seconds, the balance of power hung there, wavering. The Aurors hesitated. Minister Tillipop looked around and seemed to find that he didn't have as much support as he'd thought he did. Rosenthal was nearly hauling Draco's arm off, and her face had turned back in the direction of the Apparition point. Draco refused to move, however. Tillipop had carried this game in new directions, and he was damned if he was going to run. He would play it through to the end.

But then Tillipop smirked and said, "To match the legal conditions, Veritaserum must be administered by someone with the _license _and the _training _to administer it, and I am afraid they don't grow on trees, Ministerial Candidate Malfoy." There could be no mistaking the hate in that voice, and Draco hoped there were people in the audience who would remember it and make it cost Tillipop later. "That means you must come to the Ministry and have a Potions expert administer it." He nodded to the Aurors. "Bring him along."

Draco stood straight and upright, pushing Rosenthal away from his side with an elbow when she tapped him hard on the shoulder. He had played the game, and lost to one clumsy move. That didn't mean he had lost the war. He would find some way to spin this utter abandonment of control on Tillipop's part to his advantage.

Then he realized that Rosenthal's tapping on his shoulder hadn't stopped, the way it would have if she had given up on the notion to make him flee. Draco turned to her in irritation. Did she or did she not understand that he had done what he could, and it wasn't enough?

Then he saw what she was watching.

A black cloud of smoke, studded with golden stars, had begun to form over the Apparition point. And a familiar heaviness of magic loaded the air.

Draco bit his lip savagely, so he wouldn't laugh.

* * *

Harry was arranging papers on his desk, quietly pleased at the way the first three interviews—two for Defense Against the Dark Arts, one for Potions—had gone. All the potential professors seemed to know their subjects, and no one was overly afraid of him. He wasn't sure which of the Defense teachers he would choose yet, but he was leaning towards the one with more experience in multiple forms of defense rather than dueling. Few wizards would be involved in formal duels once they left Hogwarts, but nasty situations where they had to do more than just shield would happen all the time.

Abruptly, he lifted his head. He realized a second later that he had done it before he actually knew what was wrong. A tremor, a quiver, had run through the stones of Hogwarts, and invaded his body. He discovered that he was balancing himself with one hand braced against the wall, a support he shouldn't need when he was inside Hogwarts.

But whatever had gone wrong, it wasn't _in _Hogwarts. Not exactly.

Harry closed his eyes. "Show me," he whispered, or thought he did. It might not have been aloud. It might not have been in English.

That didn't matter. Hogwarts understood him.

The stones gave forth the sense of the person they had noticed, the person _Harry _had most noticed since he had bonded with the school. They knew who he was. They had connected briefly to his home when he Flooed out, and they knew the temper of his actions, and the resonance of his emotions was familiar to them, every emotion that had been expressed in their confines.

Now, Harry was discovering, they knew when he felt some of the same emotions even so far away.

Excitement, spiced with outrage. The same emotions he had felt when he and Harry were talking about the photographs, and who had sent them, and what could be done about them.

Except he wouldn't be talking about the photographs now.

"Show me," Harry said again. A sharp feeling was working its way up through his chest. He thrust his magic out the way he had when he was feeling for Fifernum's soul, _trying _to see if he could get some kind of connection to Draco, knowing what he wanted, but not how to do it.

When he opened his eyes, a spiral of power was rising from the floor, black and gold in color. Harry vaguely remembered Hermione telling him once that that was the most stunning and eye-catching combination of colors there was. Harry didn't know if that was true or not, but he knew that it was the color it needed to be.

Somewhere out there, Draco was feeling some of the same things he had in Hogwarts. Somewhere, he might be in trouble.

It was possible that he wasn't, and Harry would arrive in the middle of a secret meeting and embarrass them all. But he was capable of adapting to the situation, or Draco was, and pretending that he was there for some different reason.

And it might not be that. And Harry needed to know.

He reached, and he grasped, and the air around him quivered and rang, as though someone was beating the space between Hogwarts and wherever Draco stood with a hammer. It rang like a gong, then like a bell, and Harry stepped into the middle of the bell and folded his arms close to his body. It was going to be a rough journey to the point where Draco stood, nothing like Apparating, he knew that immediately.

The stones of Hogwarts shifted and flowed around Harry. They knew Draco, they knew where he stood not because of _knowledge _but because of his emotions, and when they understood what their master wanted, they made it real.

They made it so that it should be so.

Harry flowed and wavered through sunlight and the paths of grass and the tides of the mind, washing up and down, rising to the stars and the moon and then falling as rain on the earth again, in the constant exchange of magic that the outside of Hogwarts had with the elemental forces of the world around it. And because the wind had blown across other places, and the light had fallen on them, and the water had touched them, Hogwarts was connected to them.

Harry stepped out of the paths of magic and opened his eyes.

He was in the middle of a large meadow, somewhere far away from Hogwarts, he knew that. The source of his power lay stretched out behind him. On one side of the meadow stood Draco and his adviser, Rosenthal, and on the other was Minister Tillipop. Connecting them, like an obscene umbilical cord, was a string of Aurors, who looked as if they were about to arrest Draco.

Well. They _had _looked that way, at least. Now they were all looking at him.

Harry smiled. "Hi," he said. "Were you threatening a candidate who ought to have his fair chance to run for Minister? I don't think I'll allow that."


	23. Absolute

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Three—Absolute_

_He came for me._

The words worked their way into Draco's throat, down into his stomach, and he heard them ring in his head as clearly as if someone else had spoken them. He stood there with his hands locked behind his back, his head tilted as though to accommodate the jab of an Auror's wand, though in fact no one had yet approached him or tried to force him to yield that way.

He would not have said that he'd doubted Harry in the last twenty-four hours. Not exactly. He did think that his punishment for Fifernum was appropriate, and he knew other people would have taken more from her.

But it had reminded Draco that he had no way of telling exactly _how _powerful Harry was, and that meant that he could never count on having the upper hand. This was a political alliance, but it was also more than that. Harry had at last begun to acknowledge it—at the moment when Draco wondered if he could commit to it.

Now, as he saw Harry standing there with gold stars dancing around him, no mere illusions but the manifestation of his power as it just happened to be in this particular place and time, Draco shivered once, and fell.

He didn't care if Harry was so much stronger than him that Draco would never fully comprehend it. He didn't care if his heart ached when he saw that power exercised, and if he had cause to doubt some of Harry's decisions. He didn't think Harry would take exception to being argued with, the way some Dark Lords would.

It didn't matter. He gave himself up. He yielded. He surrendered, in a private and personal way that had nothing to do with always giving in to what Harry wanted or always being passive and admiring in the face of his deeds.

He gave himself up because he knew that Harry would come for him, impossibly, in the face of danger. He yielded because that power would be used for his benefit, along with other people's, and that was something Draco craved more than he wanted to admit.

He was not alone, and never would be. That, he could accept and fall in love with. That, he wanted.

* * *

Harry turned his head back and forth casually from Minister Tillipop to the Aurors, distantly wondering who would make the first move. Tillipop's face was so red that Harry thought he would faint. A few of the Aurors had drawn their wands and brandished them tentatively at Harry, but he thought that they weren't serious. If they _were _serious, they would already be charging him.

"Dark Lord Potter," Tillipop said at last. His voice was strangled. A pity it had emerged at all, Harry thought. He had hoped one of the Aurors would speak. "Why have you come? This is a—free meeting. An—unstructured debate. There is no reason for your _awe-inspiring _presence here."

Harry had to smile. The man's lies were as stumbling as the words themselves. Of course, Harry had to put that down to the terror he could almost smell.

He strolled forwards, and stopped as all the Aurors aimed their wands at him. Harry extended his hands up in exaggerated fashion. A few of them relaxed. Harry almost nodded, but managed to keep the movement to himself at the last moment. Then they didn't know about his wandless magic.

"Well, if it's an unstructured debate, then I think that's all the more reason that Ministerial Candidate Draco Malfoy should be allowed to speak, don't you?" Harry asked, turning and staring at Tillipop. "After all, you're here to speak. Not arrest someone. Unless he's already made a statement that proves he's behind a murder or something," Harry added, and turned to look at Draco.

The force of the light in Draco's eyes as he watched Harry struck Harry like a blow. He had to conceal a wince. There was _faith _there, and it would be so easy to shatter that faith. He didn't think anyone had even depended on him that much when he was saving the world from a Dark Lord rather than being one. It was a very personal faith, and he didn't know what he could have done to deserve it.

"We are arresting Ministerial Candidate Malfoy for a crime, as it happens," Tillipop said. "For the crime of knowing about a kidnapping from the Ministry."

"Oh, the kidnapping I did?" Harry bowed, his cloak sweeping behind him in a way that he knew several people wished they could imitate. Tillipop just looked as if he wished he could banish Harry, cloak and all. "Well, I can answer that he knew nothing about it." He looked around, spotting the one person close to Draco who didn't look like an Auror and so was probably the picked accuser. "And this young woman knows nothing about any incriminating evidence, either. Because it didn't happen. Did it?"

He pitched his voice low, but the woman was the only one who felt the sharp, cold wind that he had directed her to feel. She shivered violently and locked her arms around herself, staring at Harry with her mouth open. Harry hissed, quietly, and the grass at her feet writhed with snakes. Illusions, but illusions visible to her only. Harry doubted that anyone except maybe Draco would notice the way the grass had briefly brightened with some of his golden stars.

"No!" the woman gasped. Her eyes darted back and forth between Tillipop and Harry, and wisely, she picked the one who threatened her instead of the one she had hoped could shelter her. "I mean—he didn't know anything! I withdraw my accusation!"

"_Miss Sallow—_" Tillipop began in gathering wrath.

"Well, she said it herself," Harry said, and draped his cloak back along his arm as he smiled blandly at Tillipop. "It was all a misunderstanding. Hadn't you better let Ministerial Candidate Malfoy go so your _unstructured debate _can resume?"

"It was _not _a misunderstanding!" Tillipop was beginning to lean forwards as if someone was swaying him in a high wind. Harry wondered, idly, why. He knew Tillipop was afraid of him; that much, the man had already proved. It seemed stupid and counterproductive for him to go on arguing with Harry. "She really did see and hear what she said she saw and heard! Ministerial Candidate Malfoy was already preparing to testify under Veritaserum when we got back to the Ministry!"

"Oh, is that all?" Harry asked. He faced Draco. Draco stared at him in dazzled silence for a second before he ducked his head and shivered. Harry nodded. That was better. Those particular gestures could be taken by anyone watching, suspiciously, as signs that Draco was just as afraid of him as the Minister.

"I can make it impossible for someone to tell a lie in my presence," Harry said. "So I can test Ministerial Candidate Malfoy and see if he lies."

"You cannot!" Tillipop came out from behind the podium he'd stayed at so far, his hands chopping the air as if he was fighting with twin swords. "No one would trust you to guarantee that what he says is the truth, because—"

Then he choked and fell silent. Of course, that was because he didn't have much choice. Harry had turned towards him and snapped his fingers, and a huge shadowy fist had appeared between him and Tillipop, closing its fingers on the front of Tillipop's shirt and hauling him off the ground. He dangled a few meters above it now, his feet kicking weakly and his shirt tugged up around his neck so that there was no way he could manage to speak.

"No one would trust me?" Harry whispered. "You're suggesting that there's someone else I serve? Something I have an interest in, beyond the truth?" He waved his hand back and forth, and a second fist appeared, behind Tillipop, lifting him so that he no longer dangled, and could speak. "What would that be?"

Tillipop's eyes were starting almost completely out of his head as he stared down at Harry. Harry stared patiently back, not sure what Tillipop thought would come out of this. If he _did _suspect that Draco was connected to Harry, then it was stupid to threaten Draco. If he didn't, then going to such lengths to frame Draco was still stupid, because there was no way that Harry wouldn't take a frame involving his "kidnapping" of Fifernum personally.

"You're a Dark Lord," Tillipop said at last, when he seemed to realize that there was no way he was getting out of this situation without talking. "Who in the world would trust you?"

"I would."

That wasn't Draco, to Harry's relief. He didn't know if Draco would be wise to reveal the connection between them right now. It was one of the Aurors who had stood ready to arrest Draco, instead, coming forwards to kneel at Harry's feet.

Harry blinked down at him. It was Helios Blackthorne, one of the Aurors who had trained Harry in Stealth and Disguise. He gazed up at Harry with the same black eyes that had once condemned him in the classroom, and there was nothing but admiration in them as far as Harry could see.

Of course, he wouldn't let it stand there. Harry tightened the air around everyone's throats the way he had when he was forcing Fifernum to tell the truth, and asked, "Why?"

"Because you're standing up for an ideal that I want to serve," Blackthorne answered. If he noticed the way the atmosphere had changed around him, he gave no sign. He eased back to one knee, but kept his head half-bowed. "I've been looking all my life for something to serve. I thought the Ministry was it, but they promised too much and changed too little. I never found a politician who didn't have to compromise. You have the power not to _have _to. I want to follow you."

Harry blinked at him. That speech sounded strange to him, but he had made the air as tight and truth-forcing as he knew how, and he doubted his magic would suddenly fail him with an Auror when it had made the reluctant Gioia Fifernum tell him everything she knew.

He placed Minister Tillipop back on the ground, more interested in Blackthorne. "You would—what?" he had to ask, because Blackthorne's relaxed manner and kneeling stance didn't complement each other. "Follow me? Guard me? Work as an Auror for me? Join me?"

Blackthorne smiled. "All of those. You're a Dark Lord, you said, but you don't resemble the Dark Lords who murder and torture people, who are the only kinds I ever heard of up until now. I'm willing to give you a chance and see what happens. You're at least a force for change in the world." He hesitated, his mouth working, and Harry knew the truth-telling magic was forcing him to say something he might have kept quiet. "And I reckon I can always turn away from you and kill you if you turn out to be a disappointment. Or force you to kill me."

Harry had to smile and hold up one hand. "We'll discuss that later," he said. "I'm willing to take you back to Hogwarts as long as you remember that it's the center of my power and I have _rooms _that would kill you in a minute if you betray me."

Blackthorne nodded and rose to his feet. "I promise." He began to strip off his robes and Harry tensed for a second, wondering if he had added some command to the air for everyone to get naked that he didn't remember. The only person here Harry was interested in seeing naked, sometime, was Draco.

But Blackthorne only pulled off his Auror robes and dropped them on the ground, kicking them towards Tillipop with a little sneer. Then he turned back to Harry and stared intensely at him. "Do I get a different sort of official robe?" he asked. "Something so everyone knows what I do and whose side I'm on?"

"I suppose so," Harry said. Merlin, he hadn't thought this through. He had anticipated that no one would "serve" him directly for a long time; it would be the Hogwarts professors around him, and people like Draco and his friends who were equals. But if he could make the decision to leave the Aurors, bond Hogwarts to him, and set up as a Dark Lord, all in the course of a day, why shouldn't some of his followers do the same thing?

Besides, this was probably one of those chances Briseis and Draco kept talking about, the chance to make a dramatic impression.

Harry pulled one hand back and cleared his throat. Blackthorne knelt in front of him again, gaze rapt. Harry traced his hand in the air above Blackthorne's forehead, not really sure what would happen, just as when he reached for Fifernum's soul. He didn't want Blackthorne's, though. He was trying to create something, instead.

It happened. The air he outlined turned bright red and burning, and then tumbled into Harry's palm, something else falling behind it. Harry examined it carefully. Yes. The outline had formed into a lightning bolt pendant, which seemed to be made of gold backed with red metal. Maybe Hermione would know what the metal was. Maybe it was magical and had no counterpart outside Harry's power. Harry didn't know for sure.

The pendant had a silver chain. Harry dropped it around Blackthorne's neck, already thinking about different ways to do the symbol. Maybe a badge on the robes, like the Aurors or Healers had. He didn't want anyone who belonged to him wearing chains. "Rise, Helios Blackthorne," he said, clearing his throat after he spoke the words. Some of the silently staring crowd might not have heard him. "First of my—my court, the Knights of the Lightning Bolt."

_There. That ought to be sufficiently dramatic._

* * *

Draco stood there and tried to ignore the weight of jealousy that was pressing down on his shoulders like a stone cloak.

It was _difficult, _though. Knowing that that idiot Blackthorne was able to approach Harry and kneel to him and say any bloody thing that came into his head about why he wanted to "serve" Harry, while Draco had to stand here and pretend that the only connection between them was that he'd been accused of knowing something about Harry kidnapping Fifernum, and Harry had denied that he did.

_Not even that connection remains._

Rosenthal had once again pressed her fingers into his arm. Draco could picture all too well what she'd do if he said something or made a gesture.

Instead, he stood there, and fumed, silently.

Harry did turn his head, once, to meet Draco's eyes as he looked up from Blackthorne and Blackthorne's adoring expression and the _gift _he'd given Blackthorne. He caught Draco's gaze, and a flickering edge of a smile worked around his mouth.

Draco was sure that Harry had no idea how he felt in that moment. Harry would probably say that Draco had no reason to be jealous, since Harry wasn't kissing or touching Blackthorne. He'd even dropped the pendant around Blackthorne's neck instead of threading it there, so Draco didn't have a reason to suspect that Harry _wanted _to touch Blackthorne with any tenderness.

But that smile was gift enough, and Draco stepped back, smoothed down his robes, gently took Rosenthal's hand from his arm, and faced Minister Tillipop again. "I think we should continue with the debate," he said. "Don't you?"

Tillipop stared at him with shocked, glazed eyes. Draco coughed quietly. "The Dark Lord came in the first place to make clear his _complete independence _of me," he said. "That I was not an accomplice for him, and not someone privileged enough to know anything about what he does. Has the point been made? Your Aurors don't need to arrest me now. We can talk about other things."

The very lack of his reference to Harry's announcement or Blackthorne's desertion had its effect. Tillipop flinched miserably back, then seemed to remember he was still Minister and had a certain kind of dignity to keep up. He cleared his throat and straightened the sides of his robe. "Of course," he said. "We should continue what we _came _here for, whether or not the Dark Lord agrees."

He turned his head and glared—only to find that Harry had vanished with Blackthorne. From the starts and the stares around the meadow, no one had seen them go. Rosenthal stood straight up and hissed through her teeth, and many of the Minister's supporters began talking at once. Sallow, the woman who had accused Draco of plotting with Harry, looked ready to faint.

Draco coughed again. "We cannot allow Dark Lords to dictate what we do," he said. "We can only continue what we have begun."

Tillipop seized the excuse and started babbling out some nonsense about how his only _desire _was to stick to Ministry policy. Draco remained still until that speech finished, his eyes on the place Harry had disappeared from.

Then he turned back and began to perform his own part, questioning Minister Tillipop with utter gentleness, drawing him out and showing how weak he was on the grounds of debate, making points that everyone in the audience could understand but not lingering on them, because his strength was so great that he didn't need to.

_If I'm going to be part of Harry's court, then I need to perform my part in the dance we agreed upon. And only I can perform it. _

_I don't care if he's bigger, stronger, more important to the public than I am._

_If he is important to me, I will still be part of it, and important to _him.


	24. Backlash

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Four—Backlash_

"What makes you think you would be a good Transfiguration teacher?"

The witch Harry was interviewing, a tall dark-skinned woman with black hair that hung to the middle of her back and long pale gloves on her hands, smiled at him and laid a sheaf of parchment on the desk in front of him. Harry picked up and turned it curiously back and forth. Most of the parchments he'd been given in the last little while had lists of accomplishments on them, or teaching positions that the person had held, or, in the case of Potions masters, famous potions they had brewed or invented or assisted in inventing. This one was blank.

He looked at the witch. "Miss Hellebore, what—"

Ariana Hellebore flicked her wand at the parchment and murmured, "_Finite commutatus_," a spell that Harry knew would restore a Transfigured object to its original nature. Curious, he let her do it.

The parchment crumbled in his hands, a small group of ashes assembling on his desk. Harry stared at them, then up at Hellebore, who bowed.

"I didn't know that you _could _bind more than one object into becoming only one," Harry muttered, already planning to try it himself, within the bounds of Hogwarts.

"It works best if the objects are similar, the way ashes are," Hellebore said. "These are ashes from the same burning. But—with your permission?" She turned and aimed her wand at one of the empty glass vials of sample potions that prospective Potions teachers had brought Harry. Nearly all of the potions had gone into the infirmary, and into different containers. Harry had kept these vials to give back to their original owners. He didn't want any foreign material staying long in Hogwarts.

Harry nodded, curious. Hellebore had seemed to accept it easily when Harry told her that performing any hostile magic in Hogwarts would result in the school attacking her. She had asked now only as a matter of courtesy, he thought, not out of fear.

Hellebore concentrated, and three of the glass vials, plus a cauldron that Harry had placed there to let Potions teachers experiment if they wanted to, rose into the air and whirled around each other. Harry could see Hellebore guiding them with motions of her wand, but her spellwork was entirely nonverbal.

The glass vials and the cauldron shimmered and vanished, collapsing in their new form to the floor. Harry started up, but Hellebore bent down and picked the new object up to show him that the fall hadn't hurt it.

It was now an Invisibility Cloak.

It wasn't like his, of course, as Harry saw after a moment of shocked staring. It was the ordinary kind made with demiguise hair, and it would probably disintegrate in a few years. But when Hellebore handed him the cloak and Harry automatically accepted it, he felt the silkiness, the slithering sensation, that was only a little coarser than his own Cloak. When he wrapped it around his arm, the arm still disappeared.

"This is _remarkable_," Harry said, and looked back at her, and tightened the air around the room so that whoever spoke a word in here would have to say the truth, him included. "I wonder why you want to be a professor, when you have a Transfiguration skill so developed."

"There actually aren't that many jobs that give you a chance to show off this skill," Hellebore said, shaking her head. "It's not like Potions masters, who have customers all the time. Other than the rare occasion when someone calls me forth to reverse a human Transfiguration or testify in a Ministry case, I sit at home. I don't need the money, but I _do _need the public. And maybe if I can teach children the finer points of my art, there will be fewer people who act as though it's too complicated to learn or to respect."

Harry had to smile. "Good. I expect you're wondering why I want to hire a Transfiguration professor at all, when Minerva McGonagall taught it?"

"I did wonder." Hellebore gave him a small smile. "But you let it be known that the position was available, and I came to interview for it."

"Headmistress McGonagall is going to be busy with other matters of administration for the school," Harry said. "Really, she hadn't taught for several years anyway, since she did have a Transfiguration professor, but that one left last year rather abruptly, and the Headmistress had to take up the teaching duties again. It was very stressful for her."

Hellebore nodded. Then she turned her head. Harry didn't, because Hogwarts had told him about the footsteps passing down the corridors in search of him several minutes ago, but he was impressed that Hellebore had heard that much from such a distance.

"You were expecting visitors?" Hellebore asked, turning back to him.

Harry nodded and stood up from the desk, facing the door. He knew who it was, and that this was going to be a rough encounter. "I'll let you know whether you have the position in three days at the latest," he said over his shoulder. "But as far as I'm concerned, you have it. There's been only one other person interested in teaching Transfiguration, and he couldn't do what you do."

Hellebore smiled at him serenely. "It's always nice to have one's talent recognized," she said, and stood up to bow to him. "I'll let myself out."

Harry kept his face towards the door as he listened to her fumbling with the Floo powder. She had just vanished when the door banged open, and Ron and Hermione stepped into the room. Behind them trailed Blackthorne, his hand on the lightning bolt pendant around his neck and his face shocked and disapproving.

"Harry," Hermione said, her voice so low that it was difficult for Harry to hear her at first. "What _is _this?" She turned around and gestured in the general direction of Blackthorne, but he was standing so close that she almost punched him in the eye. Blackthorne moved back with a little glare. Hermione dropped her hand and flushed, all the more, Harry knew, because she hadn't meant to do that.

"I'm sorry, my lord," Blackthorne said. "You told me they were on the list of permitted people, and so I let them in. But then halfway up the stairs they started talking about you in…uncomplimentary terms, and I didn't know what to—"

"It's all right, Blackthorne," Harry said quietly, his eyes locked on his friends. Ron had stepped up to stand at Hermione's side, and his face was quiet and his eyes worried. He would be the greater challenge, Harry thought. "They're permitted. They're the closest people to me, and I _want _to talk to them. You can go back to your post."

With a couple of worried glances backwards, Blackthorne left them. The minute the door shut, Hermione took a breath deep enough to increase her size by a couple of degrees. Harry got up and stood next to his desk, reaching down to tap one of the silver ornaments Briseis had insisted he put on the desk and make it spin. Briseis had said that it would make him look impressive. Harry didn't know about _that_, but it wasn't much of a concession to make to shut her up, and he might as well try it.

"How could you do this?" Hermione whispered. "Taking someone as a _servant_? Showing up and interfering with a Ministerial debate?" She hesitated, and then reached into her pocket and pulled out the letter Harry had sent his friends when he decided that he would rather tell them about Fifernum and the consequences of the spell he had put on her before anyone else did it. "Taking an employee of the Ministry and binding her with a Dark spell?"

"The Minister would have ruined the debate by himself," Harry said quietly. "He wants to crush all opposition, and right now, Malfoy is the strongest opposition he has."

"But mostly because he gets support from _you_, mate," Ron cut in. "If you let Ministry politics take their usual course, then Malfoy would have to take his chances, just like anyone else."

Harry shook his head slowly. "But I've already interfered. What Minister Tillipop and Malfoy do now is going to be changed by my presence. I can't interfere halfway and then throw up my hands and proclaim I'm 'done' just because I want to. I interfered in the first place, and it's my responsibility to—"

"To keep doing it?" Hermione cut in bitterly.

Harry smiled a little at her. "Well, yes."

"I just never imagined that you would be behaving so much like a Dark Lord," Hermione whispered, and began to pace. "I thought that was a convenient title you were using to defend yourself and defend your takeover of Hogwarts. But it was real, wasn't it?" She turned around and glared at Harry as if daring him to disagree.

Harry nodded. "It was real."

"_Why_?" That was Ron, although he sounded more appealing than pissed, the way Hermione did. "What can you do as a Dark Lord that you can't do otherwise?"

Harry thought of the many ways he could answer that question, but restricted himself to shaking his head. "I can respond to my enemies better now than I could if I was still an ordinary Auror," he said quietly. "What would I have done, then, if someone leaked the news that I was abused when I was a child, or leaked what I told the Mind-Healers? I wouldn't have had any recourse. I would have had to go along with what they wanted. Now, I can fight back."

"But," Hermione said, and her body was practically trembling with the desire to speak, which Harry knew meant he would have to let her. He took a step back, hoping she wouldn't destroy anything. Hogwarts tended to take that personally. "If you were still an ordinary Auror, they wouldn't be _trying _these things."

"I don't know that," Harry said, meeting her eyes. "Fifernum told me that the pictures had been on file for years, since Fudge was Minister. It's possible they might not have done anything to me, but if I was becoming politically troublesome, even in a way that had nothing to do with Hogwarts? She heavily implied they would have used them."

Hermione's eyes were bright with something that looked like tears. "But you can't just go _outside _the system to change things, Harry! That's not the way it _works_."

"What works?" Harry waved his hand around Hogwarts. The walls hummed in response, and a rug that Harry had tried out in the office and then exiled to a room down the corridor came sneaking in at the doors, aiming at his friends' feet. Harry shook his head at it, and it subsided into a small, bright pile in a corner, sulking. "The school is functioning. I'm interviewing professors. I've sent invitations out. Not everyone will come, but maybe it's best if we have a small number of students at first, so that the professors can get used to teaching before they have a large number. Hogwarts is _working_."

"But you can't make lasting political change with violence." Hermione whispered it with conviction.

Harry sighed. "Maybe not. But right now, I'm fighting back against people who attacked me. And the root of all this is the decision Tillipop made to close Hogwarts. He shouldn't have done that if he didn't want me against him."

"He couldn't have _anticipated _that," Ron said, with a glance back and forth between Harry and Hermione.

"No," Harry admitted. "But he's incompetent at dealing with stiff opposition. It's possible that someone else would have raised it. And Tillipop is—is _cotton_. He sags in the face of the slightest difference of opinion and gets covered with the remnants of whatever he faced. If he was competent, he would have done something different by now."

"You're not going to apologize and you're not going to back down, are you?" Hermione whispered.

Harry looked at her, and hesitated. The expression on her face was cracked down the middle, he thought, intense longing for him to apologize and intense frustration at seeing the battle she'd waged so long taken away from her. This could be the moment that would end their friendship.

"I'll apologize if I have to," Harry said quietly. "Especially to you. But not back down, no. I made a promise, and I bonded with Hogwarts, and I have enemies who would take any concession I made now as a sign of weakness."

Hermione threw up her hands. "You have a _knight _now. Are you going to acquire more?"

"If they want to come to me." Harry shrugged awkwardly when she stared at him. "I did it in public. I can't say that only Blackthorne gets to be a Knight of the Lightning Bolt and no one else."

"I think you're going to get sick of that name by the time this is done, mate," Ron muttered.

Harry nodded fervent agreement. "I was just trying to come up with something dramatic enough to satisfy Briseis and Draco."

"You call him by his first name?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded.

Hermione shut her eyes. "I don't want to do this," she announced to the room at large, and ignored the way that the rug crept towards her and some of the stones rattled in the walls. "But I have to. You need someone in your Court who doesn't think your power is the only way to solve things." She opened her eyes and glared at Harry. "Someone with some knowledge of the _law._ And _history_. You probably still haven't read _Hogwarts, A History, _have you?"

"Why would I?" Harry asked, partially for the joy of seeing the spark light up Hermione's eyes. They were still friends. He was giddy. He could tease her because of that. "Hogwarts would tell me if there was something important it wanted me to know."

"You need someone," Hermione declared firmly. "And I might not have much of a career in the Ministry after they realize that I'm still your friend and visiting Hogwarts."

Harry winced. "Sorry." He hadn't thought about possible consequences to his friends when he declared himself a Dark Lord.

"We're going to stand with you," Ron said, smiling at him, and clapping him on the shoulder. "As long as you don't murder someone. Forcing an enemy to dream of the place that she was happy to abandon you to doesn't sound that bad to me."

"It's still worse than legal solutions to things," Hermione said, an argument they'd heard again and again. But it made her _Hermione _instead of someone else, and now Harry nodded and prepared to listen to it again. "We have to think about what we want to teach students at Hogwarts, and that means we have to think about what they would learn otherwise. How can we make our ideas revolutionary while compromising with the wizarding world's traditions? How can we…" She trailed off when Harry grinned at her. "What?" she added suspiciously.

"I think I just found my History of Magic professor," Harry said happily.

* * *

It was midnight, the day after the debate.

And Potter _still _hadn't firecalled. Or even sent him an owl.

Draco sat alone in his study, turning over the glass of butterbeer in his fingers. He had promised Rosenthal he would have nothing stronger to drink during the campaign.

But Rosenthal wasn't here right now, and Draco badly wanted the taste of _something _in his throat. If not Potter, wine. But apparently Potter was uninterested in what he wanted, and he hadn't noticed Draco's silent declaration of loyalty yesterday at all.

Draco put down his glass and sat up. There was one solution to that, one he had been avoiding because it was the common and obvious one and Malfoys didn't do things like that.

But Malfoys also didn't run for Minister instead of trying to get close to the Minister and control him. Draco had already broken from a lot of traditions.

The debate with Tillipop yesterday had gone well, once he was allowed to actually have it. Draco had made points that Tillipop couldn't answer, and made his audience laugh, and impressed, he thought, even the Aurors who had come to arrest him on Tillipop's say-so. Or at least they had slinked away instead of staying and facing him, or making faces at him, the way he had almost thought they would.

But he wanted to _tell _someone about it. Rosenthal didn't need telling, since she had been there, and likewise Pansy. Draco wasn't sure what to say to Blaise right now.

He wanted to firecall Harry—and it would be Harry and not Potter if he accepted Draco's firecall—and tell him about it.

No, he wanted to _go_ to Harry.

Draco stood up, took a deep breath, and cast a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace. "Hogwarts!" he called, and stepped through without allowing himself to wonder about where he would end up.

He stepped into Harry's office. Harry looked up, blinking, from a desk crowded with parchment, and stood with a smile. "Draco. Is there another problem with Tillipop?"

Draco felt a great shudder run down his back, but it was one that relaxed him instead of annoying him. He settled in front of Harry, arranging a chair, while Harry watched with growing curiosity.

The smile was part of it, Draco acknowledged to himself. And the way that Harry had asked the question without much haste, as though seeing Draco here alive and free was enough reassurance for him that the problem with Tillipop wasn't deadly. And the way that Draco was trusted enough to enter this office without a guard or an announcer.

But most of all, it was the way Harry reached casually across the desk and took his hand for a second before letting it go.

_This will be all right. If I don't think it will be, I will only have to make myself as indispensable to him as I promised I would._

"I wanted to tell you about the debate," Draco said, and paused a little. He wanted to ask if that was all right, and at the same time, he didn't want to reveal anything so pathetic.

Harry smiled a little. "And I want to hear it."

_And that settles it, really. _Draco put his feet up on the desk, and began.


	25. Dark and Dangerous

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Five—Dark and Dangerous_

"And so you don't really think Minister Tillipop is all that dangerous?" Harry leaned forwards to pour brandy into the glass that Draco had standing ready. At Draco's glance, he shrugged and shook his head. "Briseis brought it and said it was tribute. I have no idea if she was joking or not. I didn't want to ask."

"I can see why," Draco murmured, holding the glass to his mouth as if to conceal a laugh. Harry leaned back this time, to more properly appreciate the expression on his face. Draco's mouth was wonderfully mobile and pliant. "That woman terrifies me."

"More than I terrify you?" The question slipped out without Harry meaning it to. He winced and scrubbed a hand across his mouth. The chair he sat in promptly slipped around behind him and embraced him, rubbing against him as though that could make things better. Harry let his hands rest on the arms, not taking his gaze off Draco. He had asked the question, and that must mean that he wanted to hear the answer at _some _level.

_I could never be with someone as more than casual friends who was afraid of me. Maybe that's why I want to know._

Draco set the brandy glass down on the desk and leaned in himself, until his hair was brushing a few of the papers on Harry's desk. "You think I fear you?" he whispered.

"Yes," Harry said. "Or that you could." He thought of the way Blackthorne had knelt to him and the way Tillipop's face had turned pale yesterday afternoon. Or was it the day before yesterday now? Harry was almost sure it was after midnight, but he hadn't kept very good track of time ever since Draco showed up. "Lots of people have strange reactions to me."

"You haven't hurt me," Draco said. "You've allowed to me to watch things no one else was invited to witness. You've kissed me." That was the smile Harry liked best, without the benefit of hiding from the wineglass, flashing out sweetly for a moment before dimming to a promising ember. "I'm not afraid of you."

Harry shut his eyes. "That was the answer I wanted to hear," he murmured, not realizing until he said it how true that was.

"Why?"

Harry started, and his eyes popped open. Draco had stood up and circled around the desk. He stood in front of Harry's chair, and reached past Harry's head to rest his arms on the back. The chair helped, curving up like a serpent in two distinct places, letting Harry be caged. Harry swallowed, and something not like danger but as sweet as it was ran up his spine.

"I wouldn't want to kiss someone who was afraid of me," Harry said, being utterly honest, even if it wasn't the basis of every answer he could give. "It would turn my stomach. I could never be sure if they were with me because they wanted me, or because they were afraid of what would happen to them if they tried to walk away."

Draco laughed and swayed nearer, the chair rocking with the way he supported his weight. "Anyone who walked away from you, who gave up the chance to be near you, would be a fool," he murmured, lips brushing near Harry's throat. "Don't let me be a fool."

"How can I stop you, if you're determined?" Harry slid a hand up into Draco's hair, along his neck, and Draco's eyes fluttered dangerously as he tilted in.

"You could stop me," Draco said. "And not with your magic. By crooking a finger, by opening your mouth, by asking me." He looked at Harry, eyes opening as slowly as though Harry had actually enchanted him.

Harry's breath caught at what he saw in those eyes. He had been sure that Draco wanted him, but he had thought it was more in the nature of wanting to bind him to their alliance. If things didn't work out, Draco could back away and walk off without much regret, Harry thought. Harry wanted him, too, but it wasn't like he would try and dictate the terms on which Draco would stay with him.

But the savage desire in Draco's eyes had nothing to do with the cool emotion he'd imagined.

Harry reached up, hesitantly, further still, and let one hand encircle Draco's throat as the other lay along his ear. "You really want me, don't you?" he whispered.

"Yes," Draco said.

"And it doesn't feel dangerous to you?" Harry moved up a little in the chair. It practically forced him to move that way, and all the while, in Harry's ear, came a sound like something purring approvingly. That was a _little _unnerving. He hadn't realized how intimately involved Hogwarts was going to be in every decision he made.

"It feels exciting," Draco said. His voice was breathless, and caught at the end of the words, and he looked at Harry with eyes like falling stars.

Given that, what could Harry do but kiss him?

* * *

Draco closed his eyes, not because he wanted to, but because the relief and appreciation and desire and joy were overwhelming and he had to experience them as well as the sensation of Harry's lips sliding against his and tongue gently probing.

_Yes. _

Then Draco let himself give way and fall down into Harry's lap, and he kissed back, his tongue darting out and probing at Harry's in turn before withdrawing into his mouth so that Harry could kiss him thoroughly.

It was ridiculous and slick and warm and throbbing, and soon Draco was shifting to ease the sensations in his groin, thrusting down a little. Harry lifted his hips and thrust back as though he had only just now discovered he could. For a few seconds, Draco thought they might slide out of the chair, but then he felt it shifting and transforming around them, holding them together.

Hogwarts wouldn't let them fall.

Harry thrust back up again, capturing Draco's attention, and Draco no longer cared if all the portraits in Hogwarts were watching them. He forced Harry's head back a little and grasped and tugged some of those gorgeous black strands. Harry yielded, staring up at him with glazed eyes and biting his lip. That just made Draco want to bite it for him, and he bent down and started to do that, sharply enough that Harry shuddered and clawed at his hips.

Then something rang. Draco's first thought was that he had knocked the brandy decanter or glasses to the floor, and how much he absolutely didn't fucking care about that.

But then Harry hissed, and a gentle but inexorable force lifted Draco off him. Draco stood on shaky legs, leaning against Harry's desk, and tucked his hand against his face, staring as Harry popped to his feet.

"You weren't enjoying it?" Draco asked. Despite the ringing sound that he was beginning to suspect wasn't anything as harmless as either broken glass or his blood in his ears, he had to ask.

Harry looked at him, and his face softened in a way that made Draco want to preen. He would bet that no one else had got to see this since Harry became a Dark Lord. At least, no one else had _better _have got to see it.

"It isn't that I don't want you," Harry said quietly. "But that ward makes it clear that someone is attacking the grounds of Hogwarts, and I've got to go."

He stood up and extended his hands to the wall, whispering something Draco couldn't hear. A tunnel opened in the stones, blocks melting and flowing into new positions. The tunnel was perfectly proportioned to Harry's body, Draco noticed, leaving just enough room above his head that he could be comfortable running down it.

Harry smiled at him and started to duck out, but Draco took a step forwards and spoke before he could regret it. "Take me with you."

Harry blinked at him. "But you don't have the magic to defend yourself. And it might be some of our political enemies at the wards, and they would see you."

Draco clenched his jaw. Yes, that did matter, didn't it? "Then tell me where I can watch."

Harry cocked his head and his eyes went vague. Then another tunnel opened in the stone of the far wall, near the fireplace, leading down in a corkscrew that Draco thought was probably safer than a staircase. "The school will take you to a place," Harry told him, and then turned and ducked into his own tunnel. It closed behind him before Draco could even think about changing his own mind, and the stones began to tremble and ripple beneath Draco's feet, urging him with a gentle, tickling sensation towards the other wall.

Draco scowled at the desk and the spilled brandy and walked down the tunnel, running his fingers through his disheveled hair. _I hope that Harry makes the fuckers _pay _for interrupting us, _he thought.

* * *

Harry followed the tunnel under stone, beneath earth, and wasn't really surprised to come up near the shore of the lake. The floor of the tunnel had become damp a short time ago. Once he was on the grass, he turned his head from side to side, focusing his eyes on the shimmering wall of wards that rose just beyond the grounds of Hogwarts, with a few detours to encompass the Forbidden Forest.

There was a line of wizards there, wearing dark robes so that it was hard to see them from a short distance. It would have been impossible to see them from Hogwarts. Harry smiled grimly. But his chosen stronghold could _feel _them.

Harry thought they were probably Aurors, but they all wore long hooded cloaks with their faces covered, so he couldn't be sure. He walked towards them, flexing and snapping his elbows in front of him, rolling his shoulders to settle himself after the unexpected end of his encounter with Draco. His excitement had already turned into a different kind of excitement, though.

"Hello," he called, watching them jerk and start. He wondered if they hadn't expected him to appear to confront them at all, in which case they were stupid and he didn't have much to worry about, or if they had only expected to see him after they began flinging spells at the wards. "Did you have a message for me?"

Silence, for so long that Harry thought he wouldn't get a response. Then one of the wizards moved up to the wards and reached out to brace his hands on the air where they shimmered. Harry blinked, then shrugged a little. It was his funeral.

The wizard howled a second later and pulled back smoking palms, staring at them. Harry rolled his head when all the others stared at him. "I have to put up signs telling people not to touch the wards now?" he asked. "I thought that was covered in basic Ministry training."

Half the line shuffled, making it clear that they had come from the Ministry. Harry glanced back and forth, estimating the numbers. About forty or fifty, he thought, and some of them probably Unspeakables instead of Aurors, or Hit Wizards, given their lack of reaction to his taunt. That could be bad, particularly if they had some of the artifacts the Unspeakables studied with them.

Of course, Harry didn't plan to allow them to get a foothold on Hogwarts soil, and he didn't plan to let them attack, either. He stood there, smiling, in front of them, but he also dug his power down into the earth. He hadn't bothered to spread wards beyond the actual perimeters of Hogwarts, which marked the limits of the place where he was bonded as an avatar, but that didn't mean he couldn't command the ground there in other ways.

The wizard who had been burned stepped back and made some sort of gesture to the others. They all drew their wands at once.

Harry snorted mildly. So that was how it was. They were going to attack the wards with brute force and hope that was enough to bring them down.

It was possible that a coordinated blow like that could hurt him. Harry wasn't sure. At the very least, it would hurt Hogwarts, and undo some of the work that Harry had been laboring for.

And he wasn't about to let that happen.

The simplest way was to keep them from ever being coordinated at all, and so Harry dug his fingers down at his sides and worked the tendrils of his power that he had already sunk into the earth beyond the wards. They writhed in response, and as the lips of his opponents started to move in their incantations, Harry brought his hands up in a thunderous clap over his head.

The earth under the wizards' feet rippled and shook, furrows opening in it as though enormous tree roots were rising. The wizards fell and rolled, and Harry didn't think any of them got hurt except maybe by accident, from the falling clods of soil and any rocks that might have been buried there. But it sure as hell disrupted their attempts to stand firm and act all together.

Harry brought his hands back together and clasped them in front of him, his fingers interlocking. His enemies were fighting their way back to their feet, and Harry could see that their hoods had fallen away. There were some familiar faces there, people who wouldn't be deterred by falling down, who would only be enraged and strike at him harder.

Harry smiled and whirled his hands out, unlocking them hard enough for him to feel the sting of slight scratches on his skin.

The earth erupted again, this time with the tendrils of his magic opening out like a mass of rearing snakes. The wizards who had stood up went flying again, and this time, Harry raised his hands and fluttered his fingers, moving in a precise pattern that he hadn't planned out. His magic knew what to do, and that was enough for him.

The dirt that had flown up came raining back down, clumping and gathering together, forming into piles. Each one buried a wizard at the center of a nice little heap, their heads sticking out but their hands imprisoned, and their legs thrust further down into the earth, into the furrows that Harry's magic had already opened. Harry snapped his fingers, and the ground stirred as their wands came flying out and rolled towards him. Harry opened a single, guarded hole in the wards, and the wands rolled under it and collected into a tiny pile of their own at his feet.

Harry stepped aside as the grounds of Hogwarts opened into a pit and sucked the wands down like Dudley when he'd had a lolly. He smiled at the wizards watching him, who gaped and struggled against the dirt. It wasn't meant to hold them for long, and already a lot of them were shedding it in thick drifts.

"Thank you," Harry said. "For telling me the lengths that the Ministry will go to to destroy me, if nothing else. I'll be keeping your wands until the time at which you either join me as loyal adherents—and anyone who wants to can become part of my court, it's dead simple—or swear an Unbreakable Vow not to fight against me. I don't really feel like letting you hurt my friends and my students and anyone else who's under my charge. Have a nice evening." He smiled at them again and turned around to walk away.

"Wait!"

It was the wizard who had burned his hands on the wards, an Auror Harry had seen around but hadn't identified by name. He faced him again. "Yes?" he asked.

"You can't just _keep _our wands." The wizard had the sense to keep back from the wards this time, but he glared at Harry as if he could get through them. "That's illegal."

"So is attacking me in the middle of the night, but you didn't have any concerns about that." Harry held his hands out when the wizard gaped at him. "Look, I'm a Dark Lord. What part of the name don't you understand?"

"But you haven't hurt anyone…" Someone said it from the back, and got hushed by several people. The wizard facing Harry took a step forwards.

"This is the beginning of trouble," he said quietly. "The Minister doesn't want a war with you, but that's what you'll have if you don't give those back."

"I am shaking behind my extensive wards," Harry said gravely.

The wizard shook his head. "You don't know what powers he'll unleash. Look, I'm not proud to serve him, all right? But I understand him, and I know that he's going to spook when he realizes how strong you are. You could save us a lot of trouble if you gave us back our wands and came along quietly under arrest."

"Sure I could," Harry said. "But it would be trouble for you, not me." He smiled at the baffled frown on the wizard's face. "There is nothing you can do to touch me."

"The artifacts from the Department of Mysteries…"

Harry flexed his power beneath the earth again, and the man took a hasty step back. "Well," he said softly, "if they want to bring Dark magic to bear against me, then I suppose we'll see who's _really _better at it."

The wizard retreated after that, and so did everyone else. Harry sighed, a little disappointed that no one wanted their wand back. But he had plenty of time to convince them that his way was the best way.

He turned back to Hogwarts and looked up, locating Draco easily in Ravenclaw Tower. He waved and bowed, then walked back towards the castle, grinning. It was late, the mood broken, but he was glad that Draco had been here to see this, at least.

* * *

Draco closed his eyes and slumped against the windowsill in front of him, shivering. His hands played along the stone until he forced them to still.

The sheer power Harry wielded…

_It won't convince them. They'll come back._

But Draco had to admit that his smile as he stood back up and watched Harry walking into the school was almost as broad as Harry's.

_Let them. It'll be fun to watch._


	26. Consequences

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Six—Consequences_

"Draco."

Draco pried his eyes open slowly, confused. Rosenthal was the one who usually woke him up, with the schedule for the coming day and her own suggestions for what he could do to improve on that schedule. He rubbed his eyes and turned towards the Floo in front of him, wondering where she was.

He sat up hard enough to bump his head on the bed's canopy when he saw who was present instead. His father's face hovered in the fire, pale and stern and looking so _Malfoy _that Draco reached up to adjust a school tie that wasn't there.

"Father," Draco said. At least his voice didn't shake. He made a little bow from a seated position and swung his legs around so that they rested on the floor. "I didn't know you would be calling on me today."

_I expected Rosenthal, or maybe Harry. _At least a glance out his bedroom window told him why Rosenthal wasn't here. The sky had turned soggy and cloudy, pouring down rain. He'd been supposed to have a huge outdoor meal this morning for some of his supporters. Rosenthal had already told him that if the weather was bad enough to make the awnings sag, they would wait until this afternoon instead.

"You know that I dislike what you are doing, Draco."

Draco looked back at Lucius and said nothing, not knowing what his father wanted him to say. Yes, it was true that no Malfoy in history had ever sought the Minister's position, because it was too public. Less freedom to collect bribes and favors if you had eyes on you every minute and the whole wizarding world inclined to blame you personally for every downturn in economic or martial fortunes.

But Draco had announced his plan to run for Minister two years ago, at least to his parents, and he'd thought they'd accepted it. Draco simply blinked at his father, and waited.

"Your friend Blaise Zabini informed us of your—connection—with Potter." Lucius's voice dropped. "Close enough to receive personal photographs of his past and discuss them with him over a private Floo call, Blaise said, receiving answers that were honest as far as he could tell. What are you _doing,_ Draco? You cannot simultaneously be the independent Minister that you took pains to make yourself and the servant of a Dark Lord, the way I was."

Draco didn't fold his arms, didn't sigh, but he wanted to. _So this is Blaise's revenge for what happened to his mother. I suppose I should accept that he could have done worse._

"I am not a servant," Draco said. "I'm an ally. If Blaise thought I was a servant, he was mistaken. The way Potter answered my questions should have clarified that for him. If I was Potter's subordinate, he could have ordered me to shut up, and I would have had no choice but to obey."

"A valued servant might find a way around the rules," Lucius said, and the flames lit up his cheekbones with stark shadows. "You know that as well as I do. I repeat: _what are you doing?"_

Draco sighed. Useless to hope that he could hide this from his parents, even for as long as this. He didn't know when Blaise had told them, so Draco's alliance with Harry might have been exposed almost as soon as Blaise knew the truth about his mother.

_Useless to try, _Draco decided, watching his father's face and hoping Lucius didn't take Draco's easy surrender for a sign that he should try and separate Draco from Harry.

"It is an alliance," Draco said. "It started out that way, and we don't intend to let anyone else know of the alliance until after I'm elected. Maybe not then," he added, thinking of the way that the gaping mouths and eyes of the people at the debate had pleased him. "But I'm not a servant. Potter has no idea about how to be a Dark Lord, not really. He only declared himself one because he thought it would intimidate the Board of Governors and the Minister into backing off from closing Hogwarts. He wanted to save the school. He bonded with it. And I'm teaching him some political aspects in return for support that doesn't look like support."

"Why must you have the personal touch in such a bargain as this?" His father frowned at him.

Draco smiled at Lucius and crossed his arms over his chest, although he leaned sideways enough in the bed that it didn't look intimidating or like he was trying to confront his father. He hoped. "Because why shouldn't I take pleasure where I find it? And it's one way for Potter to pay me for my political instruction."

He would not say it was more than that. Not yet. He had to come up with terms that his father would accept, and right now, this was it.

He got a long, slow look that told him he wasn't fooling his father as well as he had hoped. Nonetheless, Lucius could not have many other sources besides Blaise, and he had trusted Draco enough to expose that source right away. So he didn't intend to abandon Draco to a hopeless existence devoid of his trust.

Lucius remained silent. Draco knew he was turning the explanation Draco had offered him over in his mind, letting it acquire the proper polish from the grit already stored there to make it into a pearl.

"If you risk your campaign on this…" Lucius began.

"Rosenthal's already let me know _all about_ the consequences of that," Draco said, and saw Lucius smile for the first time since the conversation had begun. His parents approved of Rosenthal. "But why would you care that much about it, Father? I thought you would be just as pleased not to see me run for Minister anymore."

He gasped a little at the way Lucius pinned him with stern eyes. "Because you have chosen to make your run in public, and in a way that has already begun," Lucius said slowly, as though Draco was stupid. "What a Malfoy begins, he finishes. _Do you understand_?"

"Yes," Draco said, and felt, as though from the touch of a ghost, emotions he had believed were years dead. He was no longer a child, no longer even someone who lived under the domination of his father most of the time. But he shook it off a second longer and gave his father a thoughtful look. "Does Mother feel as you do?"

"That a Malfoy should finish what he begins?" Lucius sneered the answer.

"No," Draco said. "I meant, does Mother feel that she can approve of me running for Minister now?" It had never been as much of an _open _contention between him and Narcissa as it was between him and Lucius, but she had dealt with his campaign by refusing to discuss it with him. Draco knew one of the most frustrating evenings in Rosenthal's life had happened when his parents invited her to dinner and then spoke around and under her work instead of about it.

"She will come to," Lucius said. "She could accept you in power more easily than she could the servant of someone else."

"It isn't _servant_," Draco said firmly. "Potter doesn't think like that. But I would never call myself his master, either," he added, answering the question that he knew Lucius was opening his mouth to ask.

"Someone who does not know what mastery means will come to crave it more, the more he is bathed in power," Lucius said.

"But you were powerful in the Ministry for a long time, and you never tried to rule people that way," Draco said, deciding that a little judicious flattery couldn't hurt. "Who's to say Potter can't resist the temptation?"

Lucius half-lidded his eyes, in the way that made it impossible for Draco to tell what he was thinking—not that he was always successful at other times, either. "I contented my impulse to mastery in other ways," Lucius murmured. "I _do not want _your Potter to start imagining that he can content his by ruling over you, however."

Draco sighed again, and made an offer that he might regret. However, his parents had met Rosenthal and not exploded in spontaneous anger, so he might get away with this, too. "Why don't you meet him, have dinner with him? Oh," he added, as his father's eyes widened enough that Draco could see more of Lucius's eyelashes than usual, "I know that you know him, in a way, but you haven't met him since the war."

"And I am content to keep it that way." His father was staring at him.

"Host him," Draco said firmly. "Invite him over. Feel the magic he exudes. And then you might understand why I'm as close to him as I am now."

"I would not want to be enslaved myself," Lucius said simply, "if his magic is really as intoxicating as you think it is."

Draco rolled his eyes. "I never said anything about his magic being the only reason I want to be close to him, Father."

"I can see it in your eyes, however." Lucius leaned back as if he would close the Floo connection. "I had much the same light myself, once upon a time, when I began to serve the Dark Lord." His voice grew soft, while Draco stared at him. Lucius had never willingly spoken about that time that Draco could remember, during the first war, even when Draco had asked him. "Walk away from this while you still can, Draco. For the moment, it might seem as though Potter will give you everything you want. I assure you, _that _is not true. He might not have the same intentions that the Dark Lord did, but he will end up disappointing you in the same way."

Draco took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to honor his father's confidence and his alliance with Harry at the same time. Finally he decided that he couldn't do it in the same sentence, and bowed to his father instead. "Thank you for telling me that."

Lucius nodded, a silent, resigned look on his face. _He knows what I chose even before I said it,_ Draco thought. He could only hope that Lucius listened to the second part of Draco's little speech, instead of dismissing it because he thought he already knew what Draco meant.

"But I promise," Draco said, leaning forwards while his fingers dug into the bed so hard that Lucius would be able to see it if he looked, "I'm not marching blindly to my doom. I would back out of this if Potter couldn't give me what I wanted. But I really do think that he can. And when I'm elected Minister, even if I broke off the alliance, I would still have to deal with him. That he's declared himself Dark Lord is a fact now, and we can't go backwards from that. It's better to have a relationship with him now instead of only after I get elected."

Lucius's eyebrows rose. "A relationship?"

Draco flushed, and then cursed himself for doing that. "A poor choice of words, maybe, sir," he said, bowing again. "But I meant it as having an alliance. If I rejected him now, it would be much harder to work with him when I became Minister."

Lucius studied him in silence. "What makes you think he will work with the Ministry at all, rather than simply take it over?"

Draco laughed, and then had to speak hastily as he watched the thunderclouds move in across his father's face. Lucius never _had _had any tolerance for someone making fun of him. "Forgive me, sir. But so far, everything Potter has done is reactive, not active. He hasn't tried to kill anyone who hasn't tried to kill him, and he even came and interfered in the debate Tillipop and I had only because I was in danger of being arrested. He didn't try to kill Tillipop or stop him from speaking. He left."

Lucius was immobile for a short time, so much so that Draco finally accepted that he would close the Floo call without saying anything more. He sighed and reached for his robe. Whether or not his father approved of him, he had things to do.

Lucius finally said, "Perhaps what you say is true. I would not trust it, not from someone who looks like he is in love with Potter."

Draco knew the deep, betraying blush rose straight from his groin and came all the way to his face. He didn't look down, though, because if Lucius already knew his deepest secret, there wasn't much to do but keep pushing forwards.

"But _perhaps_," Lucius said, leaning back and looking at Draco with the sort of tolerant look that he used on lost puppies as long as they were clean and purebred, "I should invite Potter over to see for myself. You may tell him that your mother and I expect to see him at eight-o'clock on Tuesday."

Draco nodded, limp with relief. "Thank you," he said, and then wondered why he should say it, when Lucius was the one issuing an ultimatum and making Draco's life more difficult. Draco was the victim in this situation.

_I'm saying it because no one else will, _he reminded himself, when he looked into his father's face again. _Because it's big of him to give me this chance, and Harry will probably come as long as he doesn't have a school to save that night._

"I hope you know what you are doing, Draco," Lucius said, and hesitated a moment. Draco was beyond stunned when he leaned forwards and said one more thing before he closed the Floo. "I would not see any child of mine make the same mistakes that I did."

And then the fire winked shut, and Draco stood there blinking and wondering exactly how he was supposed to respond to _that_.

* * *

"Eight-o'clock?" Harry turned away from Draco's owl to Briseis, who hovered nearby with a long scroll of parchment in her hand. "I could do that. Couldn't I?"

Briseis firmed her lips and looked at the schedule once to be sure, or for effect. Harry knew she had the bloody thing memorized. "It's not the time that concerns me so much as the day," she said. "That's the day before the Hogwarts Express arrives, my lord. Are you _sure _that you want to devote that much time to a single appointment instead of being here, where we can reach you if we need you?"

"What would prevent you from reaching me in Malfoy Manor?" Harry propped his feet up on his desk and yawned. The magic of Hogwarts stretched around him like a lazy cat, and played with the collection of Auror wands it had buried in the earth. So far, no one had come to demand their wand back yet, but it was only a day since Harry had taken them. He would give them time.

"I _meant_," Briseis said, "the kinds of questions that only you can answer, and might not want to do in front of an audience."

Harry shrugged, and watched her with an easy smile, which she didn't return. "If necessary, I could shield the Floo connection when you called me so that no one else would be able to listen in."

Briseis rolled her eyes and leaned back against the wall, considering him. "You're impossible."

"I hope that means you won't be leaving me?" Harry was well-aware that not all the professors he wanted to hire would probably stay, once they learned exactly how much power he wielded in Hogwarts and the costs to their reputations in the outside world. Ron, too, had been very quiet the past few days, although Hermione had accepted his offer of the position as History of Magic professor. Harry wondered who else he would lose before this was done.

"No," Briseis said, giving him a flat look as she raked her fingers through her hair. "Who exactly do you think would arrange your schedule and coordinate everything you need if I leave?"

"I would have to hire someone else," Harry said simply. "But will you tell me what really worries you that much about this dinner?"

Briseis sighed. "Lucius Malfoy is cunning," she said bluntly. "There's no reason to think that he would agree to this invitation without an ulterior motive."

"Draco said that he wanted to make sure Draco wasn't falling into a trap or slavery," Harry said quietly. He was thinking of the Battle of Hogwarts, and Lucius and Narcissa doing anything they could to defend their son. "I can believe it. He really does love Draco."

"But there's nothing else?" Briseis leaned her hip on his desk and looked him in the eye. "I think that's what Mr. Malfoy believes, and I know that he honors you with the confidence." She muttered the last words between gritted teeth. "Nothing that Lucius Malfoy might want from you, beyond making sure his son is safe?"

"Can you think of anything concrete?"

Briseis sighed. "No. I'm asking you if _you _can."

Harry shrugged at her, smiled. "You're the political expert here, and I'm only the one with large amounts of power. If you can't imagine what he wants, I think I can't, either, until I get there."

Briseis stood up a little straighter. "As long as you acknowledge that there _could _be ulterior motives."

Harry nodded. "I'm inexperienced enough not to be able to imagine what they are, not stupid. I'll shield the Floo calls if you have to make one, and I'll question Draco if he wants to share anything else with me." He winked at Briseis. "He's the one I'm considering a closer alliance with, you know, and not his father."

Briseis didn't smile back. "I would not like to imagine what might happen if Lucius Malfoy learned that," she said quietly. "Hold it back." And she swept out of the room with his schedule dangling from one hand.

Harry sighed and stared at the ceiling. He didn't want to tell Briseis that, from what Draco had said and hinted at in the letter, Harry was pretty sure Lucius already knew.

And if that was the case…

_I'll deal with it when I need to. _

It was a philosophy that he hadn't needed to change yet.


	27. Dinner With Lucius Malfoy

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Seven—Dinner With Lucius Malfoy_

"Welcome, Mr. Potter."

Harry nodded to Narcissa Malfoy, keeping his expression as amiable as he could. He had last seen Narcissa four years ago when she was kneeling beside him in the Forbidden Forest and laying her hand on his chest to report to Voldemort that he was dead. It made sense that there would be changes between that woman and this one.

But still, it was disconcerting to realize how _much _had changed. She looked like a marble statue that someone had given living eyes to. She dropped him a little curtsey and turned away, leading him further into a magnificent corridor and out of the bright little sitting room Harry had Flooed into.

Harry had known that Draco's parents weren't living in Malfoy Manor, but he hadn't thought to picture what kind of house they _would _have. Why should he? He had a hard enough time picturing all the threats the Ministry would throw at him, let alone the dwelling place of some people he hadn't thought would be important to him again.

_You should think of them as important because they're important to Draco._

Harry grunted to himself. That protest from his conscience made sense, at least. Maybe he should spend more time and thought on them.

But this house was beautiful, and ornaments gleamed from every corner, and Harry could almost feel himself shrinking as he walked. He thought that was a deliberately planned effect, one the house was _meant _to have. Make the intruder feel unimportant, and he might not stay long enough to get the carpets dirty.

Harry reminded himself, again, that he was Britain's newest Dark Lord, and he had bonded with Hogwarts and disarmed fifty powerful wizards without even using an _Expelliarmus. _And he had impressed Briseis and romanced Draco and convinced Hermione to work with him, things that he thought were even harder and more important than his other achievements.

Had Narcissa Malfoy ever stared Briseis down and insisted on coming to dinner two days before Hogwarts opened? Harry didn't _think _so.

So he put his chin up and practically strutted down the corridor, and if Narcissa looked curiously at him as she led him into the dining room, that didn't _matter, _because Harry had _decided _that it shouldn't matter.

He let his eyes turn haughtily around the room. Draco wasn't there yet. There were only four things in the room: a fireplace along one wall that would swallow the whole of Harry's new office in Hogwarts without a burp, a table that was nearly as long in the center, a candelabra suspended by a chain from the ceiling that made the whole room blaze as if it would catch on fire, and Lucius Malfoy.

Harry made a careful note to himself to tell Lucius, sometime, that Harry had looked at him last, preferring the candelabra and the fireplace first. Then he gave a stiff little half-bow. Briseis had tried to coach him what to do in the circumstances, but had to give up when she admitted half the pure-blood niceties on her list depended on knowing whether Harry was going to the Malfoys as an ally or an enemy.

_Or a son-in-law. _But Harry decided he wouldn't mention that possibility until he wanted to watch Lucius Malfoy choke on a tomato.

"Welcome, Lord Potter." Lucius's back was so stiff and still that it took Harry a moment to decide that he meant the words—well, meant them enough to be going on with. "I did not realize that you would arrive so early."

_This is the time Draco's owl told me to be here. _But the protests died on Harry's tongue when he realized that he was hardly likely to have found Narcissa waiting to guide him, or Lucius waiting to meet him, if the time was wrong.

They were just trying to shake him up, the way the ornaments in the house and the sheer size of the corridors were meant to. Harry thought of folding his arms or scowling or spitting out an insult, but he kept coming back to the fact that these people were important to Draco, and, from all the evidence Harry had been able to gather in the war, really did love him.

So Harry just let his arms hang at his sides and said, "Thank you, Mr. Malfoy."

Narcissa walked past him and to the table. Exactly as she stretched out her hand, a beaten gold goblet, with decorations along the top like small pieces of silver barbed wire, appeared. A chilled jug hung above it, falling into Narcissa's other hand. She turned and inclined her head to Harry as the dark red liquid glided out of the jug and into the cup. "Will you partake, Lord Potter?"

Harry wanted to ask what it was, but he knew, or thought he knew, what was going on here. It was an intimidation test. Ask what the drink was, or refuse it, and he lost points in their eyes.

_Why the fuck should I care about what I look like to them? _

But the answer, as always, was Draco, and Harry managed to stifle his sigh as he reached out for the goblet. At the same time, he tightened his magic into an invisible net around his throat, ready and waiting to collapse inward if it needed to. Any poison or potions in the goblet would be stopped before he could swallow them.

There were none that he could tell, though, or that his magic could tell, which was more important. Most of the time, Harry felt that his magic was wiser than he was. He sipped, and choked a little on the thick red wine, harsh enough to make the insides of his veins bristle. He wondered if that was part of the test, too. Maybe he was even failing it by not showing that he was revolted by the taste, and therefore that he wasn't part of the highest circles.

But he couldn't twist himself into knots trying to foresee every tangled little idiocy of pure-blood behavior. And showing emotion of any kind would probably result in losing the contest, too. He put the goblet on the table instead and nodded. "Thank you," he said, and turned towards the fireplace just as it whooshed and Draco stepped out of it.

Harry let his eyes warm, because there was no reason not to. The one thing he absolutely trusted Draco's parents to do was keep information to themselves that could potentially harm Draco—like letting other people know that the world's newest Dark Lord was fond of him.

Draco had had his hair done so that it waved gently around his ears and down to his neck, without actually being that different from the natural way it fell most of the time. His robes were a delicate, shifting dream-color, somewhere between ivory and white and gold. Every time Harry tried to get a grip on the shade, Draco would move another way and the candlelight would make the robes appear a different color and Harry would have to give up. But he didn't think it mattered. What _mattered _was that Draco looked stunning, and he looked at Harry and let his eyes light up.

Not as much as he would have in Hogwarts, but, well, if Harry's parents were still alive, he wouldn't try to snog Draco in front of them, either. And letting his emotions show freely was practically Draco's equivalent of snogging.

"Welcome, Draco," Narcissa said, moving forwards and holding out her hand as she smiled at him, maybe to show Harry how it was done. Harry watched as Draco kissed the back of his mother's hand without taking his eyes off Harry, and then shook his father's hand the same way.

Lucius showed nothing, whether he was irritated or ruffled by what Draco had done or merely bored. "Shall we dine?" he asked, turning towards the table, and the food appeared at the same time.

It was expensive food, Harry thought, which meant he didn't recognize any of it. Well, the seat between Draco and Narcissa, across from Lucius, was clearly his. He eyed the branchy green things on his plate, surrounded by thick slices of meat that was closer to white than pink, and decided to make the best of it. At least in and among the branchy green things were round red spots that looked like berries.

He had barely sat down when he sensed a shift in the mood of the table. He looked up and from face to face. Lucius and Narcissa were watching him, as fascinated as though he had stripped off his clothes and started dancing naked. _Maybe even more than that, _Harry thought. He didn't think either of them had any particular _desire _to see him naked.

_Unlike their son._

Harry cleared his throat and decided that ultra-refined and polite ways weren't getting him anywhere anyway, so he might as well go for the kill. "You wanted something?" he asked. "Other than to tell me what breach of manners I've committed now?"

"It is obvious that you're not familiar with the food we eat here, Lord Potter," Narcissa said, her voice as soft as dripping oil. "Why not use your magic to change it to something more to your liking?"

Lucius was leaning forwards the slightest distance beyond her, his eyes luminous and his hand resting on the table as though he would push himself back and to his feet. Or maybe the hand was lying there casually, for some other reason, and Harry was misreading him.

Harry restrained the tendency to snort. _And maybe my arse will turn purple and start singing about my love for Draco._

Well, he had expected a test, hadn't he? If he hadn't anticipated that Narcissa would deliver the challenge, that was easily remedied. He just had to do something equally unexpected and novel and exciting, so they would _understand _him and the way he responded in the future. It wouldn't do to confuse the in-laws, after all.

Harry smiled at them, and prepared to move.

* * *

_Father, Mother, what are you doing? _

Draco had thought that his parents would probably demand to see Harry's magic at some point. Yes, Draco could sense the lazy swirls of energy around Harry's body when he moved, but he thought that came from long experience of him.

_Long experience? It's only been a few weeks. _

But that was longer than his parents, who hadn't seen Harry since the Death Eater trials after the war, had. And Harry had come in the front door like someone normal, had accepted the wine that Narcissa had offered, had been as polite as he could be before that remark about manners.

It made sense that Lucius would decide to test Harry's power, to see whether this "Lord Potter" deserved the title he had claimed.

Draco only wished it hadn't been in front of him, and while they were eating. He tensed subtly, ready to move if he had to, and waited.

"I don't have any wish to change the food, Mrs. Malfoy," Harry said. Draco winced. He'd never heard _that _particular crystalline tone in Harry's voice before. He was pretty sure that he didn't want to hear it again, either. "I don't recognize it, but life is all about trying new things. Since you've gone to so much effort to entertain me, though, I feel it would be remiss of me not to offer you some…_entertainment _in return."

He snapped his fingers. Draco supposed he was the only person in the room—well, the only Malfoy person—to feel the way that the lazy ripples floating around Harry suddenly concentrated on him, ringed his neck and throat, and then spread out from there, no longer ripples but arrows, heading straight for the mantle and the fireplace.

The fire leaped from the logs and into the room.

Draco saw his mother start to her feet, saw her hand rise, and knew how much she would hate that later. Rather than sit back down and make it obvious how ashamed she was of her outburst, however, she remained standing, one hand locked and white-knuckled on the back of her chair. The best choice she could make, Draco reckoned.

He wondered if she even noticed the way that she pressed the back of her other hand to her mouth.

The fire spun lazily above the carpet, grew hands and feet, and stretched and elongated into a shape not unlike a house-elf, but much taller. Around it spread a flowing cape of flame, held back from burning the carpet and wood it crouched on by nothing, Draco knew, other than Harry's will. Then the colors changed, so that rather than mostly red and gold and orange occupying the fire, it burned blue and white, pure, heated colors.

Harry bowed to the flame-giant in the center of the room. "Will you please dance to entertain my hosts?" he asked, voice so like Lucius's at some important function that Draco wanted to laugh.

The problem was, only Harry would get the joke. So Draco bit his lips ferociously and did his best to sit quiet.

The flame-giant bowed back, in a long inclination that Draco thought imitated the way a fall of sparks would settle into the fireplace, and then began to dance. The long cloak swept behind it, creating small white triangles that glittered and sparkled in the center of the dining room. Its hands fluttered down embers from near the ceiling, which always faded before they hit the carpet. Draco knew how impressive just that level of control was from Harry's magic, and wondered if his parents did.

Narcissa had sat back down. From the expression on her face as she watched the giant dance, Draco thought she might know.

Lucius's face reflected nothing at all in the brief moment Draco dared to glance at him.

The giant began to spin faster and faster at a soft gesture of Harry's fingers. Its body thinned, until it looked so much like a column of pure flame that Draco struggled to see human features in it at all. At the same time, it shrank, concentrating the glare. Draco didn't put a hand over his eyes so that he could see better, but he was tempted.

In the end, what looked like a lump of diamond and sapphire crouched just above the center of the carpet, radiating beauty. Harry clenched his fingers. Draco thought he was the only one who heard the small huff of effort that escaped him.

The fire leaped up once more, divided in two, condensed, and then began to fade. Draco turned his head, expecting to see the flames return to the dead, cold log on the hearth.

That didn't happen, though, and when he turned back to the center of the room, it was in time to see two small objects lifting up. They were round, and spun through the air like huge rings as they sped towards Harry.

Harry caught them up and stood with a small bow, turning towards Draco's parents. The rings dangled from his fingers. Draco caught his breath. They were made of—was it truly concentrated flame? _Solidified _flame? They shimmered with all the colors that had played in the flame-giant's body when Harry made it dance, anyway, subtle ripples of gold and red following deeper ones of blue and white, with a trace of orange here and there.

And they were not rings after all, but thin crowns.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Harry said smoothly. "I wanted to offer you these as a token of _mine_." He spread his fingers, and the crowns lifted away from his hands, one drifting towards Lucius, one towards Narcissa.

Draco thought he was the only one who saw the muscles in his father's neck clenching and knew the massive effort it took him not to flinch. Narcissa, since she was taking the lead in testing Harry today, was the one who looked him in the eye and asked, "How do we know that they will not burst into flames and consume us if we wear them?"

Harry's face flowed and changed like flame itself, and he smiled at her. "Because the fire is held in check by my will, and I wouldn't consume people so important to Draco," he answered, and his eyes found Draco's over his parents' heads.

Draco swallowed and nearly closed his eyes to keep from being singed. The smallest part of him, he had to admit, had wondered where _his _flame-crown was. But Harry's gaze had given him the answer. Harry needed no flame-crown to mark Draco with his affection, his strength, and his protection.

"I see."

Draco blinked and looked up. That was his father, speaking for nearly the first time all evening. Lucius stood and put down his goblet, and then reached out to curl his fingers around the crown floating near his eye level.

Draco held his breath. The coronet looked fragile, as if it could be broken with a single yank. And he suspected that only ashes would mark its passing.

But Lucius slid the crown over his hair. A moment later, the one Harry had designed for Narcissa was also on her head, and Harry was appearing a bit bemused, which looked wonderful on him. Then again, Draco had yet to find an expression that didn't.

Lucius bowed to Harry, shallowly, but enough to differentiate real respect from false, Draco knew. "Thank you, Lord Potter, for laying my fears to rest, and for your gift," he said. "Let us sit down and continue our meal." He looked at the hearth and frowned. "Although I fear that we will need to call house-elves to relight the fire."

"No need."

Harry breathed over his fingertips, and sparks whooshed to life in a rainbow-like arc, settling from his nails onto the logs. Once again they burst into life and heat, and Harry sat down in the seat Lucius had designated for him. Draco, taking pleasure in his secret knowledge, saw his legs tremble, and knew that Harry wouldn't be able to use much magic for the next hour or so.

His parents only smiled.

_He won them the best way he could win them, _Draco realized abruptly. _By proving to them that he cares for me, and that they're important to him because they matter to me._

Dinner was full of pleasure, after that.


	28. Confrontations From Within

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Eight—Confrontations From Within_

"Mr. Potter. I must speak to you."

Harry paused, and turned around. He had to admit that it was nice to have someone call him that instead of "My Lord" or "Harry-I-have-lost-my-patience," as Harry had mentally nicknamed the tone Hermione used to speak to him whenever she came to see him about changing the History of Magic classes. Harry had told her to do whatever she wanted; Binns was still showing up to teach, but they would just move Hermione's classes down the corridor to a different room and handle it that way. Binns was stuck in too much of a routine to follow.

He was a little less relieved when he saw it was McGonagall. She stood there looking cold, arms folded and head bowed. Harry swallowed and kept the stones from swelling up beneath her feet. He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't want Hogwarts to hurt her. He just wanted to hear what she'd come to talk about.

"Professor McGonagall?" That just made her shoulders tighten up more. Harry hesitated, then used the title that she had refused to be addressed by in the last few weeks. "Headmistress?"

"Do not call me that." There was a hint of her old sharpness, and it relaxed Harry far more than seeing her had. "I am no longer Headmistress of this school in any way that matters."

Harry eyed her cautiously. "I tried to leave your office open for you," he said. "I'm sorry for using it the first few days I was here. It just seemed like the natural place to organize the school from, but now I realize that my own office works better."

McGonagall's shoulders pulled in further, and for a moment Harry thought she was changing into her Animagus form; her hair almost visibly bristled. "You should not be organizing the school at all," she whispered. "_I _should have."

"Then do it," Harry said. "Whatever you want me to hand over to you, I will." It would actually sort of be a relief if McGonagall would run the school on a day-to-day level, Harry thought, and interview the professors Harry had hired and make sure they were actually competent. Then Harry could concentrate on defending Hogwarts from the sort of stupidity the Ministry had pulled the other night.

"You make a mockery of me." McGonagall had her head up again, and her hand on her wand. Harry told the stones buzzing under her feet to shut up. He was perfectly capable of handling this himself, without it dissolving into violence. "You claim that you want me to run the school when I know full well that you were the one who chose to send out invitations, and hire professors, and run the Hogwarts Express tonight."

Harry waited to see what else she would say, then shrugged a little. "Okay," he said. "But do you want to make different decisions? If you want to hire new professors, then do it. But you're not going to close the school down. That was what the Board of Governors and Minister Tillipop wanted. They're not going to get it."

"Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Potter," McGonagall whispered, "that, no matter how excellent your reasons, rebellion against the lawful authority is still wrong?"

Harry sighed. "Maybe. Maybe I could have done this better." He glanced towards the front of the school, then shook his head. Of course his bond with Hogwarts would let him know when the students were actually approaching. Right now, he was looking for a way to escape this conversation with McGonagall, and that was a weakness that was unworthy of him. "But I did it, and I don't agree with any of the reasons that Minister Tillipop and the Board of Governors had for closing the school. Did you?"

McGonagall shook her head. "But I still didn't rebel against them."

Harry shrugged. "I did. I don't know what you want me to do, unless you think I can use my magic to turn back time."

"I want you," McGonagall said, and her wand was out and trained on him now, "to surrender to me. To come with me, and tell Minister Tillipop that you're giving up and letting yourself be arrested."

Harry raised his eyebrows, and once again squashed the castle's instinctive response, which was to defend him. He wanted to handle this on his own. "You said something you should have paid more attention to," he murmured.

McGonagall eased forwards one step. She didn't look at his hands, only at his eyes. Harry approved her caution. She knew that with so much magic at his command, his wand wasn't the danger here. "What do you mean?"

"_Let _myself be arrested," Harry said. "By now, Tillipop would know that for the charade it is. There's no way they can take me unless I let myself be taken. I can't get anywhere by bowing my neck and hoping that contents them. Tillipop already had weapons waiting, like the photographs of my past, on the off chance that I might become interested in politics and a problem someday. They were always uneasy about me. They'll be _terrified _from now on." He looked at McGonagall and wished that he saw some softening in her eyes, some acknowledgment of the reality of what he was saying.

"If I surrender," Harry said, deciding he had to be blunter, "then one of two things will happen. Either I'll end up in Azkaban for the rest of my life, probably along with my friends, or they'll kill me."

"They would not do such a thing," McGonagall said stiffly. "You could prevent them from doing it."

Harry had to snort. "Why should I prevent them from killing me but not from arresting me? And a term in Azkaban would be all right? Everything would be all right, as long as I do the right thing but not what they want me to do?" He focused on her, to the point that the castle did, too, and McGonagall swayed a little from the intensity of that regard. "Besides, do you think Tillipop is rational enough to believe me if I say that I'm surrendering?"

"That is a chance you will have to take," McGonagall said. There was still dignity in her, sharp, sturdy dignity as she drew herself up that Harry couldn't help respecting. "You are not surrendering as much for Tillipop as you are for the ordinary witches and wizards of the world."

Harry blinked. "How have I hurt them? By keeping the school open, you could say that I'm benefiting them."

McGonagall shook her head impatiently. "If you show them that rebellion against the Ministry is possible, they might try it. And none of them have your power and your—power of standing up to the Ministry's reprisals. They would be crushed."

Harry sighed. "If they do something against the Ministry that is stupid and unjustified, then yes, they'll be crushed. But that was true of the Dark wizards I hunted during my time as an Auror, too. I won't be responsible for every stupid thing that someone else does because of me, any more than I was responsible for the Minister's decision to bribe my Mind-Healer and release those photographs of me." He might as well let McGonagall think Minister Tillipop had been behind everything. "I've outlined what I'm defending. Hogwarts, and my allies. That's it."

McGonagall gave him a sad smile. "I don't want to have to do this, Harry," she whispered. "I thought I could convince you. But I see I can't." She turned and looked over her shoulder down the corridor, searching, for a moment before she called, "Are you ready?"

There was a shuffling in the portrait frames. Harry looked up. He hadn't tried to control the portraits in Hogwarts, really. He controlled the walls they hung on, and that was enough, if they ever tried to spy on or hurt him.

Dumbledore was in the nearest frame, which Harry knew had been a landscape up until a few moments ago, staring out at him.

Harry cleared his throat awkwardly. He hadn't talked to Dumbledore even during the few days that he'd used the Headmistress's office. He hadn't known what to say.

"My boy," Dumbledore said gently now, "do you know what you're doing?"

Harry nodded. "Yes."

It was impossible to tell, from the expression on Dumbledore's painted face, what he thought of that answer. "Do you?" Dumbledore repeated. "Can you tell me ten things that _you _would not do?"

Harry had to think about it, but then he held up his hands and started numbering them off. "I wouldn't kill someone who was trying to attack me. I don't need to, when I can just imprison them instead.

"I wouldn't ever damage or tear down Hogwarts. I came here to save it.

"I won't punish anyone for questioning me. Questioning isn't an attack.

"I won't turn away people who come to me for sanctuary. Hogwarts is so huge that I can find some job for them around here.

"If the Ministry does something to me or my allies, I'll find out the specific person who did it or ordered it and punish them, not anyone else. I don't need more enemies than I have.

"I won't let myself be used as a pawn in someone else's struggles with the Ministry. I'm too powerful to just sling my magic around at someone else's request.

"I won't interfere in criminal sentences unless I have proof that the Wizengamot was bribed or there was some other means to show that the trial wasn't just. They must still be capable of making the right decision _some _of the time.

"I won't pursue Minister Tillipop after he leaves office. He's not important to me once he doesn't have political power.

"I won't force anyone to come to me or change their political affiliation. I want people I can trust around me, not someone who was coerced into making the decision.

"I won't attack over simple insults published in the paper. I've been insulted too many times to really care about that."

He dropped his hands and looked up at Dumbledore, raising his eyebrows. McGonagall was still and silent beside him, Harry knew that, but he didn't want to look at her right now. He kept his gaze firm and light and steady, and Dumbledore began to nod as though he didn't know what else to do, a small smile breaking out over his face.

"That sounds like a reasonable and fair set of rules to follow, my boy," he said.

"Albus!" McGonagall almost screeched the word. Then she calmed down and spoke to the portrait in a tone Harry didn't have a name for. "You can't _seriously _think that this is a good idea? He isn't obeying any rules except his own! What's going to keep him from doing something horrible later? These rules might be a good idea right now, but—"

"What's going to keep the Ministry from doing something horrible?" Harry interrupted, and he could feel the stones lashing under his feet now. He let them rise. He was _tired _of always trying to reassure people who wouldn't believe him anyway. "What happens if they try to kill me, or my friends, or the people who are teaching for me? Should I stand by with a patient smile and let them do it?

"And they'll _never _think of me as normal, no matter what I do. I was an Auror for the last year, and an Auror trainee before that, and they always whispered about me and walked carefully around me even though I hadn't shown them I was magically strong. I just—what? Should I always pay the price that _Voldemort _should have paid? Do I have to be cautious forever because he marked me and now people think that I'm going to be him? Or would me taking over the school and being powerful be okay if I just wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived?"

The corridor echoed with his shouts, and then snakes of stone rose out of each wall and aimed their heads at McGonagall. Harry shut his eyes and stood there. He smoothed the snakes back into the wall, then opened his eyes to look at the Headmistress.

She was grey and very old. She met Harry's eyes and shook her head. "You promised that you wouldn't attack anyone who questions you," she whispered.

"True," Harry said. "I'm sorry. But you'll notice that I held the snakes back from attacking."

"You threatened me," McGonagall said. "It's the same thing. I can't trust you now." She took out her wand again, looking at it for a second as though she regretted it wasn't more powerful. Then she aimed it at Harry. "I'm going to ask you to leave Hogwarts now, and let me be the one to summon the Board of Governors back."

"So you can close it," Harry said. He didn't ask.

"Yes."

Harry shook his head slowly. "I told you that I came here to defend Hogwarts. I wouldn't try to stop the Ministry from building another prison or deciding that no one could use house-elves anymore. But I am going to defend Hogwarts."

"Maybe it's the right thing to keep the school closed for a little while," McGonagall said, and gave him a humorless smile. "So that we can think about _our priorities. _And you said that I was the Headmistress."

"The Headmistress's duty is to keep the school open," Harry said. "Not to close it because the Ministry wants you to. What are the students supposed to do while it's closed? Why are the Board of Governors and the Minister being _responsible _to close it, when it means that all sorts of students will go without a year or years of magical education?"

"They can go to Durmstrang or other schools," McGonagall said steadily. "This is what the Minister decided, and he's the elected representative."

"I never let the Minister decide my course of action, Minerva," Dumbledore said from his portrait. "One could even argue that I defied them more drastically than Harry has done."

McGonagall turned to look at Dumbledore. "That was different, Albus," she said, as her eyes filled with tears. "You know—you knew the costs of your actions and you reckoned them up. Mr. Potter is too young to do so." She turned back towards Harry, and her wand arm might as well have had a steel pole up the inside by now. "I don't trust that Mr. Potter has enough experience to make the right decisions."

Some part of Harry froze tight, and then shattered.

No matter what he did, it was always _different. _He had been a perfectly competent Auror, he had taken some risks, but they were risks that the older Aurors he worked with had taken, too. And it didn't matter. They were still unacceptable because he was him.

Defying the Board of Governors didn't work because it was him. He should have stood back and smiled and not done anything to anyone when those photographs appeared or the Mind-Healer gave his interview because it was him. He was unfit to have so much power because it was him. Defying the Ministry, something Dumbledore had also done, was wrong because it was him.

Harry Potter just didn't belong anywhere and couldn't be trusted with anything, even after he saved _the bloody fucking world._

"Fine," he said, his voice alien. "When would I have enough experience to make the right decisions? When I was thirty? When I'd spent fifteen years locked in Azkaban? What makes you think they could even _hold _me? What makes you think they wouldn't try to drain my magic away and leave me like that?"

McGonagall peered at him. "Draining someone else's magic is illegal," she said, as if Harry was slow.

Harry laughed, and saw slivers of stone fly out of the wall above McGonagall's head. He couldn't be sure if his voice had caused them or if Hogwarts was responding in sympathy to his emotions, and he didn't care. "So is bribing Mind-Healers and not interfering when a child is being abused, but the Ministry did that, too."

McGonagall reached up and adjusted her glasses with a hand that trembled. "I didn't know," she whispered. "I suspected, but…"

Harry rolled his eyes. "And you didn't interfere because it was more important for the Boy-Who-Lived to be behind blood wards and out of the wizarding world than it was for him not to be abused, right?" he asked.

"I didn't interfere because I _wasn't sure_." McGonagall sounded as though she would try to rival his voice for sharpness.

"Why didn't you _ask_?" Harry said, and his voice trembled this time. He closed his eyes. No, he wasn't going to get involved in a useless argument over this. He had already decided what he should do. He didn't want to kill or hurt people who were only doing what they thought was right, but he wouldn't allow them to stay around him, either.

McGonagall's silence was the only response Harry would ever get, he knew. Just like the Ministry would be silent on the subject of how long they'd had those photographs of the cupboard and the bars on the window, and St. Mungo's would be silent if Harry demanded an apology for the shitty quality of their Mind-Healers' discretion.

He was never going to be normal or receive normal treatment because he was _Harry Potter._

Fine. He would make his own normal, then.

He opened his eyes and gestured with one hand, letting the magic choose where it wanted to go, how it needed to act. Another stone snake reared out of the floor where McGonagall stood, but this time, it just curled gently around her waist and rippled away towards the door.

"You can send an owl with a list of what you need, and I'll send you your clothes and anything else you own," Harry called after her.

He turned around and caught Dumbledore's eye, still watching from his portrait.

"Get out of my sight, sir," Harry said softly.

Dumbledore didn't move. "How long are you going to do this, Harry?" he asked. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"Did you know about the Dursleys?" The question Harry hadn't intended to ask came out of his mouth with enough force to make a torch sconce burst into flame.

Dumbledore closed his eyes. "I had my suspicions."

"And you did nothing _because_?" This time, both wall and floor trembled.

Silence.

Harry raised his hands. The ground inside the portrait began to move sideways, shuffling and shutting Dumbledore out. Harry knew that he could still return to his own frame in the Headmistress's office, but Harry would confine him there, and decide what to do later.

He stood there with his heart beating and his cheeks hot.

He had always been less important to other people than something else—their own personal lives, or other people they were protecting, or their desire to believe him mad, or their jobs, or the dead, or their fears. Well. Now, he was going to _demand _respect and consideration. He was here, and the Ministry couldn't get rid of him by slapping him down.

"My Lord?"

Harry opened his eyes. Briseis was on the steps that led down to the Great Hall, watching him with a faint frown.

"The Hogwarts Express is due to arrive in a few minutes," Briseis said.

Harry took a deep breath. He couldn't demand respect right now. He had to go and greet his new students and professors and reassure them.

But later, he would go to someone who Harry thought could give him consideration, and ask for some.

He might be a Dark Lord, but he couldn't do it all alone.


	29. Comforting the Dark Lord

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Nine—Comforting the Dark Lord_

"Thank you for making the journey to come here."

Harry heard the echo around his words as he spoke. The Great Hall didn't hold half the people it could right now. Perhaps a quarter, he thought, with around two hundred and fifty students, and the seven new professors Harry had hired at the High Table, plus Hagrid and a few others who had come back.

The students stared at him. There were few young faces—just five who had turned eleven since the school was closed to Sort into the various Houses. Gryffindor had taken three of them. Harry hoped that wasn't because of him, had suspected wearily that it might be, and then had decided not to worry about it.

As he'd told McGonagall, if he spent all his time not doing things because he was worried about what silliness they might inspire other people to get up to, then he'd never get anything done.

"I appreciate the risk you took and the sacrifice you made," Harry added, and met pair after pair of hard eyes in the faces of the sixth- and seventh-years. Those were Hogwarts students old enough to remember the war, although they might only have been eleven at the time, and eager to come back in spite of what the Ministry had done. Or because of it, Harry thought. They had already lost a year under the farce that the Death Eaters made of their education, one could say. The Ministry wasn't really that threatening by comparison. "You should know that you won't receive Howlers here, and owls or Floo calls only from your parents or other approved contacts. If you think that someone is getting through who shouldn't, or you want someone new added to the list of people who can talk to you, then please tell me."

That caused a lot of people to nod. Harry wondered what else a Headmaster was supposed to say. He hadn't banned any magical devices this year, and there was no third-floor corridor to be kept away from. Hogwarts would do exactly what he wanted, stone by stone, and that meant every student could run around the whole giant place without falling into trouble.

But other warnings might not be out of place.

"Please don't go into the Forbidden Forest to see unicorns or chase Potions ingredients," he said. "It's not worth it."

There was a splutter of laughter. Harry smiled a little. He picked up his goblet of water, waved it at the rest of them, and sat down to let the new professors introduce themselves. He had hired Hellebore as Transfiguration Professor, and Hermione as History of Magic teacher, and although a few had come back—like Sinistra for Astronomy—most of them were new. He might as well let _them_ figure out what they wanted to say.

They spoke better than he did, he thought. Their words were well-chosen and they were pithy and didn't have long silences between them. Maybe he had this powerful magic in part because he was so much of an idiot with words. Just keep silent and drag people out of the way, that was him.

Except that everyone always wanted him to _talk._

Harry rolled his eyes at himself and downed half the water in his goblet. He could hear the excited squeaking of the house-elves through the cracks in Hogwarts's walls moments before the food appeared on their plates. He smiled a little and sent a pulse of joy through the stones. He hoped the elves could understand.

Of course, people didn't stop watching him, even though Harry piled his plate with so many sandwiches and fruits and biscuits that it would be hard for him to see them back. They were waiting for a slip, a failure. Harry felt his shoulders hunching and tensing. Some of them were probably waiting for an excuse to attack him, the way that McGonagall had—

Then he broke himself out of the mood, just before he felt his chair begin to curve around his back. No, he couldn't think like that. _Could _not. Especially because he had the power to hurt someone if he did.

He sat still instead, and smiled when he had to, and spoke when spoken to, and waited until the moment when the Houses filed out of the Great Hall behind their newly-assigned prefects. Then he heaved a long breath and stood up.

"Where are you going—Headmaster?" Sinistra had perceptibly hesitated before she used the title.

Harry turned around and gave her a weary smile. The one she gave in return was strained, but at least she seemed to be adapting better to him as an adult and an equal than McGonagall had.

"Don't call me that," he said. "I have to get a proper Headmaster or Headmistress in here, but in the meantime, I've only claimed one title for myself. Call me Dark Lord Potter, or Harry. Either one is fine."

Sinistra blinked. "Such a wide disparity between them to choose from," she murmured.

Harry laughed. He hoped that her sign of a sense of humor was the way that the other returning professors—Hagrid and Flitwick—would manage to act around him.

"Where is Minerva?"

That was Filius, in fact, coming up behind him. Harry turned to face him. "She wanted to shut the school down and hand it back over to the Board of Governors," he said quietly. "I told her that she was no longer welcome here. She also pointed her wand at me, so I had the school escort her out. I did tell her that she could owl me to have me return her things to her," he added, because Filius studied him doubtfully.

"Did you push her out the same way you did the Board of Governors?" Filius asked.

"Not exactly the same way, but it wasn't much different."

Filius sighed. "Let me write to her, too. Maybe I can persuade her to come back and see it's a good thing that Hogwarts is staying open."

Harry hadn't considered that option, and he nodded now. "Do that. She would probably take the reassurances of someone she's known for decades over the reassurances of someone who pushed her out and who she thinks is too young for responsibility."

Flitwick gave him a hard look, but turned and walked away with a bob of his head that seemed to indicate a nod. Sinistra was the one who cleared her throat and asked, "Did she say that?"

"She implied that I didn't have enough experience with power," Harry said, and then realized what he was doing. He waved an impatient hand. "Not that I want to scold or speak of her as though she hurt me. She didn't." _I only want to tell one person in detail about what happened this afternoon._

"I'm glad for that," Hermione said softly, as she passed behind him.

Harry smiled at him, and she smiled back before hurrying on past him, to Gryffindor Tower. She was Head of Gryffindor House, both because there was no way that Harry wanted that position and because he had thought McGonagall wouldn't want it, either, even before their argument. Harry had thought Hermione might find the pressure too much, but her eyes were burning and she carried a huge stack of parchments under one arm already. Harry hoped that she wouldn't try to give all the Gryffindors their schedules tonight, or, worse, assign them all _Hogwarts, A History, _as homework.

"Mate, can I talk to you?"

And that was Ron, waiting as patient and steady as a pillar behind him. Harry nodded to him, waved to Sinistra, and turned around to follow Ron down the corridor from the Great Hall towards the entrance, even though it was the opposite of the way he wanted to be going.

To his own office, and the Floo there, and Malfoy Manor.

"I heard about what happened earlier," Ron said.

Harry opened his mouth to ask from who, but then he closed it. The last thing he wanted was to accuse his best friend of sneaking around behind his back and lying.

"From Dumbledore's portrait," Ron added, before Harry could say something.

Harry gave a long, low sigh and spread his hands. "Yeah, that's—I don't know what you want me to say."

"I think you shouldn't have done it."

"She wouldn't accept a compromise," Harry said, his eyes on the moon. He could see it bigger and brighter than he'd thought, floating over the top of the North Tower. Well, at least Sinistra ought to have an interesting sight for her Astronomy classes. "She told me that she wanted to turn the school back over to the Board of Governors and close it down."

"Maybe you shouldn't have started this whole rebellion in the first place," Ron said. "Maybe it was the wrong thing to do."

Harry sighed again and turned to face him. "Then I'll ask you the same thing I asked her. What do you want me to do? Travel back in time and do something else?"

Ron stared at him, freckles dark as mud in the moonlight. "What? No. I'm warning you for the future, so you can _think _before you do something else like this."

Harry had to smile. "Thank you. And you plan to stay with me?"

Ron nodded. "I've already had three Howlers from various people in the Ministry, although only one of them was actually important. They say, basically, don't expect your job back." Ron shook his head. "I didn't really want it to come to this, but there was no way to keep my job and support you at the same time."

Harry touched his shoulder for a second, letting his hand linger longer than it usually would. When he'd declared himself Dark Lord, he hadn't thought much about the effect it would have on his friends, he had to admit. "Thank you for coming along, Ron. If you want to be my conscience…"

Ron cocked his head. "But I don't get paid for that. I want to be flying instructor."

Harry laughed. He hadn't hired someone to teach flying; Madam Hooch had retired during the past summer, and it hadn't seemed as urgent with only a quarter of the students coming back and so many other posts to fill. "It's yours, if you want it."

"With _good _pay," Ron said. "If I have any students as crazy as you and Malfoy were, I'm going to need it."

"It's yours," Harry repeated.

Ron nodded and turned back to the school, wisely. Harry didn't know what Ron had seen in his face, but he knew that he wouldn't want to be in his own way right now.

Harry hurried into the night, taking deep breaths until he felt the pressure of his connection to Hogwarts lessen a bit. Then he turned around and walked into the air. He hoped that Draco wouldn't mind this intrusion into his wards so late at night, but Harry felt as though he had a sunburn beneath his skin, and he was certain the only cure was Draco.

* * *

Draco pushed a finger into the center of the page, to hold his place, and listened. A minute later, he snorted. Yes, that was Harry, the way he had felt the wards tremble just now. Draco laid his book down and stood up to welcome him.

Harry was in the room before Draco could leave it. Not that Draco minded, but it meant he stood there and blinked instead of having a wise and witty word ready to go, and in the meantime, Harry had grabbed him and practically stuffed his tongue down Draco's throat.

Draco spluttered a little, then accepted the kiss. Harry was strong and sweet and determined, and pouring so much magic into the air that Draco could taste it like syrup on his tongue. He pulled back at last, before Harry was done, shaking his head when Harry lunged for him. He _liked _this, but he wanted to know what had happened first.

"Are you all right?" he asked, noting that Harry's eyes had a vacant look and his hair was tangling down the nape of his neck like ruffled feathers.

Harry's gaze focused on him, and Draco shivered. "No," Harry said, and tugged Draco close again, though this time he only rested his chin on Draco's head and closed his eyes.

Draco let himself be held. It was strange, he thought. His head was swimming, and he knew his father probably would have said it was from exposure to powerful magic and Draco should remember that magic could turn on him in an instant. But resting like this, he felt content, so much so that his breathing slowed down and Harry's slowed with it. Harry ran his fingers lightly down the middle of Draco's back, nails resting for a second on his spine.

"Now are you all right?" Draco whispered, when they had stood like that for perhaps five minutes.

"Closer to it," Harry said, and pulled back, and smiled, and guided Draco to the stool in front of the fire. Draco went, although without taking his eyes from Harry. Harry's hair had flattened, and the sensation of his magic in the air was no longer like drowning in syrup. Draco sighed. It was a sign that Harry had calmed down, yes, but he almost missed the feeling of being that close to power.

But there was another realization waiting for him, when he checked on the shape of a thought knocking insistently on the door of his mind.

_I'm the one that he came to for comfort._

"You're so gentle," Harry whispered to him as he sat beside Draco, making the stool wobble, and embraced him again. One irritated glance from Harry at the floor made the stool leg steady and become rooted. Draco hid his smile against Harry's shoulder. At the moment, he wanted there to be no chance that Harry would think Draco was making fun of him.

"What happened?" Draco whispered.

Harry's shoulders tensed and flexed, and then Harry dropped them back and sighed. "Something stupid, really," he mumbled into Draco's shoulder. "McGonagall decided that she couldn't just stand back and let me rule Hogwarts the way I wanted to. I offered her the position as Headmistress, but she wanted to arrest me and take me to the Ministry instead."

Draco gaped against Harry's shoulder. "Doesn't she know what they would _do _to you?"

"She didn't seem to trust anything I was saying, even when I told her." Harry burrowed into Draco's shoulder. "She thought I was too young, and I didn't know anything about the Ministry or the Board of Governors or what they wanted, even though they _told _everyone. It was better for the school to be shut down than stay open, she said. And then she called in Dumbledore's portrait, and I found out that both of them suspected the Dursleys abused me and didn't do anything about it."

Draco didn't know what to say. The silence seemed to settle around him, as heavy as snowfall, and still that wasn't enough to change the crimes that Draco would have liked to charge McGonagall and the Headmaster with.

Draco had never known either of them well, not the way Harry seemed to. McGonagall was fair even to Slytherin students, and a good teacher. Dumbledore had offered him sanctuary right when he was on the verge of death, and Draco had tried to kill him. That was the extent of his connection with them.

This, though…

"Why?" he whispered.

Harry shook his head, hard enough that Draco could feel the prickling feathers of his hair standing up against his neck again. "Because it was convenient. Or it would have been inconvenient to intervene. They just stood there in silence when I asked them, but I know it's that. I was always—always less important to Dumbledore than the prophecy, and I was just one of her students to McGonagall. She worried about me and she was proud of me, and she said something about suspecting the Dursleys weren't the kindest set of Muggles in the world, but she didn't bother to go and _ask_."

Draco's arms tightened around Harry. "I would always ask," he whispered into Harry's neck. He thought he knew in detail, now, why Harry had come here instead of going somewhere else, and he was going to be worthy of that compliment. "I would always want to know what's happening with you. I would have asked if I knew you then."

Harry chuckled. "Would you have, considering everything that was happening when we were in Hogwarts?"

Draco had to laugh back. "Maybe not. But the person I am now would have asked the person you were then. And I would ask if you were going through something similar—the way I did tonight."

Harry started and pulled back. Draco stared at him, wondering if he regretted his openness now for some reason, and would leave.

But instead, Harry held a trembling hand to Draco's cheek. His eyelashes trembled, too. "_Thank _you," he whispered. "I didn't know that that—that was what I wanted. I mean, I knew I wanted comfort from you, but I thought I just wanted to talk to you and have you listen. I didn't know what I wanted you to _say_. But that was it. That was perfect."

Draco leaned his head on Harry's shoulder and closed his eyes. After that, they were silent for some time, in front of the fire, in the grand room, where the only noises were distant house-elf ones and the crackling of the flames.

Draco knew they wouldn't have a lot of peaceful moments like this one. But he had no intention of wasting what they did have.


	30. Outside the Rules

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty—Outside the Rules_

"Is Potter going to be here for this one?"

Draco gave Rosenthal a brilliant smile and looked back down at the parchment in front of him, the outline of the dining hall where he was throwing a dinner for whoever wanted to attend. The security provisions needed to be checked again and again; while Draco wanted supporters of Minister Tillipop and reporters there to prove that he wasn't the monster Tillipop was trying to paint him as, he wasn't foolish enough _not _to try and do something to preserve his life. "No. He's busy with the school."

He thought Rosenthal would either acknowledge that or ask again, and looked up at her continued silence. Rosenthal faced the window of their strategy room, a huge thing in a jeweled frame that Draco thought was gaudy. At least the view it showed, of the gardens, was soothing to the eye.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked.

"I don't like it," Rosenthal said.

"Don't like what?"

"That he's staying away from this one." Rosenthal turned to face Draco, and now she stood with her hands clasped behind her back. "When you might need the most protection, then he abandons you?"

Draco had to laugh, although he tried to keep it to a polite snicker for Rosenthal's sake. "Why do you want him here?" he said, studying Rosenthal's face and trying to see what had changed. "Earlier, you kept worrying that associating with him would tarnish my reputation. What changed?"

"I came to see that his power has its uses."

Draco stood up and circled the table. "Tell me the truth."

Rosenthal almost visibly spun around to face him, but managed to control it at the last minute and just gave him a haughty look. "I have. If he's that powerful and your ally, you should get some use out of him. And this is the most dangerous dinner that you've ever done. The most dangerous _stunt _that you've ever done. You know I disapproved of it when you first announced it—"

"But you figured out ways to make it work, rather than telling me you wouldn't do it," Draco said. "Is this more of the same? You're putting up with Potter because you've learned that he's not going away?"

Rosenthal hesitated for one second. "Yes," she said. "Of course. That's it."

"No, it isn't," Draco said, and this time he moved around her until she had no choice but to look him in the eye—that or stare stubbornly at his feet, and Rosenthal wasn't the sort to indulge in those childish games. Well, Draco would have said so until today, at least. Now she stared at his feet, and Draco sighed. "Have you found out something about Potter that you fear to share with me?"

For a long second, Rosenthal's nails drove into her skin. She relaxed them when she saw Draco looking, but said, "I can't—I can't be of use to you much longer. Someone—found out something about me."

Draco raised his eyebrows. That hadn't been a problem he'd anticipated having. Rosenthal was so efficient and practical that it made it seem as if she had lived her life as cleanly as a bird in the air.

But the more he thought about it, the more Draco had to grimace. Of course one couldn't spend time around politicians without deciding it was a good idea to spend _more _time, and to get involved in some of the things they did. To nudge people along who might be more useful if threatened. To spend a little more money than necessary, and arrange to have rumors spread that might not start otherwise. Draco had already had Rosenthal help him with several of those things in his campaign against Minister Tillipop.

The true problem was, what had Rosenthal done that made her so sensitive about telling him? What could be worse than what Draco had asked her to do so far?

"Tell me," he said.

Rosenthal turned and stared at him. "Don't you think I would have if I felt I could?" she whispered. "The most I can do is have you sack me, so my blackmailer can't use me against you."

"They specified doing that, then?" Draco let one hand fall against his leg. "Then it must be someone who's prominent in the Ministry or the campaign to get Tillipop reelected. Maybe both."

Rosenthal closed her eyes and shook her head. "It's no one you would ever have heard of."

"They're often the most dangerous, I know," Draco said softly, nodding. "But listen. I don't think your blackmailer anticipated that you would trust me enough to tell me even _this _much. Otherwise, you wouldn't make such a fine weapon against me. Why not go the rest of the way, tell me the whole of the truth? Then we can convince him or her that you're still working against me, still cooperating with them, when in truth you've turned around and are a knife aimed at their throat."

Rosenthal's eyes closed more fully. "A plan that I would have approved, if you brought it to me," she whispered. "It is a shame that I must leave you when you are becoming more practical."

"A plan that you _can't _approve?" Draco's mind coiled back on itself, wondering what the hell she could have done. Even murder would have been something he could reconcile himself to, if he needed to, and provided who she had killed and how. And acting against the Malfoy family interests before he'd hired her seemed strange; he thought that Rosenthal had enough common sense to know she'd probably be found out if that was the truth, and she wouldn't have tried for the job near him in the first place.

"Yes." Rosenthal kept her eyes closed, her lashes so dark against her cheeks that Draco thought he had never seen them properly before.

Another suspicion began to stir in Draco. Not the _Malfoy _family interests, that wouldn't make sense, but she might have acted against someone else, someone now closely associated with Draco—someone who _hadn't _been associated with Draco when Rosenthal began working for him.

"Potter," he said. "You had something to do with Potter and the conspiracy against him in the Ministry, back when it was only a potential conspiracy."

Rosenthal choked and opened her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I had no idea that you would ever be allies. I had no idea that he would _ever _become so important. He ruined so many plans when he declared himself Dark Lord."

Draco nodded absently, his mind ranging back over some of the ways that Rosenthal had responded to Potter in the past. Well, they made sense now that he knew what to look for.

"If he could be the one to agree it was all right and you should continue working for me," he asked abruptly, "would you do it?"

Rosenthal gaped at him. "But he doesn't forgive his other enemies. Why should he forgive me?"

"None of those other enemies were ones who had tried to help him as well as hurt him." Draco tapped his chin with one finger. "Of course, it'll depend on what you did."

Rosenthal lowered her head and paced back and forth. Draco waited for her, ignoring the sense of undone things around and beyond them, unsigned papers on the desk behind him, unraveling plans. He knew that he was on the verge of losing Rosenthal if he pressed too much, and he didn't want that to happen.

Rosenthal finally licked her lips and turned around again. "I helped secure the pictures of his abusive relatives."

Draco winced. "He's going to have a hard time forgiving that," he said, when he could speak again.

"So we might as well not ask?" Rosenthal winced as she said it, but her arms were hanging down at her sides again, and she looked like herself again instead of the desperate woman who had first attracted Draco's suspicions this morning. "I am prepared to apologize, and offer information if he does not have it."

"Including the name of the person threatening you?" Draco asked.

Rosenthal paused, as if communing with herself, and then nodded.

"Then the least we can do is ask him," Draco said, and picked up a handful of Floo powder. He did pause to look her in the eye. "You understand, after this, you'll have to be loyal to him as well as me. He won't tolerate your going against him again."

Rosenthal nodded. "If I can escape this blackmail and continue working for you, then I'll pay that price."

_Practical, _Draco approved to himself as he threw the Floo powder in. _It isn't what I would want in a lover, but perfect in an adviser._

* * *

"But it's important for them to learn more than goblin rebellions." Hermione stood in the center of Harry's office like a warrior queen, her eyes snapping.

"It's also important for them to learn how dangerous Muggles are, but I don't see you volunteering to teach the history of _that_," Briseis said sweetly.

Hermione's eye twitched in a way that Harry hadn't _ever _seen it twitch, and Harry intervened before the conversation could end in another of those armed silences that seemed to fill the room whenever Hermione and Briseis were together. "Hermione only just started at this job," he reminded Briseis. "She still has to make decisions about what to teach and what she won't."

Briseis looked down her nose at the room in general, a neat trick since she was shorter than Hermione. "She has already made up her mind about what to leave out. I am merely trying to give her some advice about what to include."

Harry flashed a hard glance at Hermione when she started to respond. She gritted her teeth, but kept silent out of friendship for him, which was more than Briseis would have done, which was why Harry was inclined to let Briseis have her say.

"And I think the confusion over this is stupid." Briseis looked bored. Before Hermione could explode, she continued, "Of course our students should learn everything. Goblin rebellions, danger from the Muggles, the origin of the Ministry and blood politics. That is the kind of thing that would most infuriate the Ministry and prove our school different. They were perfectly satisfied with the way Binns was teaching the classes before, because it suited them to have us ignorant. Do something different, be expansive and don't leave anything out, and you're flouting them."

Hermione blinked, and blinked. Harry leaned back behind his desk and beamed at both of them. Maybe they would settle this themselves and he wouldn't have to smooth over ruffled feathers.

"But I don't think goblin rebellions are useful," Hermione said at last. "There are so _many _of them."

Briseis waved a hand at her. "Dig into the causes behind the rebellions. Present those, and maybe our students will finally stop believing that there's no friction between goblins and wizards and we all live happily together. Most of them seem to think that just because the goblins run Gringotts for wizards, they never resent them."

"I can't teach everything," Hermione said, and it sounded close to a wail. "I would never fit it all into the classes!"

Briseis half-sniffed and turned her head to the side. "Simplify it for the younger years. By the time that they get to your upper-level classes, they should be able to build on the knowledge that you've already given them, and you can spend time going deep instead of broad."

"But I'm talking about the students that are here _now_." Hermione folded her arms. "Even the seventh-years don't know much because they kept dozing through Professor Binns's classes and they don't care about history."

"Tales of bloodshed would wake them up," Briseis said firmly. "That would have done it when I was a student."

"Why aren't you teaching history, if you know so much about it?" Hermione demanded. But her eyes gleamed, and Harry recognized the look she had when she knew that someone else had a good idea, she just didn't want to admit it, because that would end a debate she was enjoying.

"I don't know much about history as such," Briseis said. She had a look on her face that Harry knew, too. _She _wouldn't end the debate because she thought she was winning, and she wanted everyone to admire her. "I was only naming things that I think are important and that would have intrigued me when I was a student. Someone else would probably have a different list. The _important _thing is the way you teach things." She examined her fingernails for a moment, and then smiled at Hermione. "And part of my job is coming up with ideas. I like it better than implementing them."

Her tone implied all the superiority in the world to teaching, and Hermione had just opened her mouth when Harry held up a hand. "Listen," he said, because both of them turned around and glared at him. "Hermione, why don't you come up with what you think is most important and only mention goblin rebellions a few times this term? It's going to be a short term anyway, since we started in the middle of it. Let's do what we can and have restricted exams, and you can teach a longer list of subjects next term."

"_Restricted exams_?"

Harry slapped his forehead. He saw Briseis's smug glance, and gestured at the door. "You. Out," he mouthed, when she would have stuck around to see the carnage.

Briseis sniffed and left, after a long bow to him that must have made Hermione's hair bristle. Harry couldn't _wait _for the day that Briseis declared herself Harry's Death Eater in Hermione's hearing, and by "couldn't wait" he meant that he would rather be on the other side of Britain at the time.

"We can't have restricted exams," Hermione began. "It goes against the whole spirit of a school!"

Harry held his hand up, and Hermione fell silent, staring at him. Harry had half-closed his eyes, and he was sure that he looked ridiculous, but he couldn't help it. He could feel a silent, soft singing in his bones, similar to the kind of impression he'd got when Draco was in danger of being arrested at the debate.

At the same moment, the door burst open, and Blackthorne bowed hastily to him, straightening up enough to gasp, "My lord, Ministerial candidate Malfoy and his adviser Rosenthal are on the Floo."

"Why didn't the Floo open directly into my office?" Harry demanded, but then he remembered the seventh-years yesterday who had thought it would be great fun to direct every Floo call into Harry's office, including ones from their parents. Harry had temporarily shut down his own hearth, so Blackthorne, who had some Healer training, would have received the call in the infirmary.

"I'm coming," he said, standing.

"The _exams, _Harry," Hermione said. She sounded close to tears.

"I trust you to invent an exam that's comprehensive and as difficult as it should be, but only covers a small amount of material," Harry said over his shoulder. It was the right thing to say; he could see her stiffen with pride before the door of his office swung shut behind him.

"Is it wise to leave her in the office, my lord?" Blackthorne was trotting behind Harry as Harry's strides lengthened, searching for the place in this corridor most directly opposite the infirmary, where the stones could open and pull him through. Blackthorne's silver lightning bolt pendant still banged against his chest. Harry had offered to get rid of it and give him something more discreet and, as Draco said, tasteful, but Blackthorne had refused. Harry rolled his eyes to himself. At least he didn't have to fear that Blackthorne was going to be mindlessly obedient to him all the time, the way he had at first.

"Hermione is one of the three people I trust with my life," Harry said. He would leave Blackthorne to wonder about who the third one was. "She's always welcome any place I go."

"All right, my lord."

And although Blackthorne sounded dubious, Harry knew that was it. Blackthorne would obey him and guard Ron and Hermione as well as he could, if he had to, despite doubting the wisdom of some of Harry's suggestions.

Harry found a place where he could twist through the stones without either upsetting the foundations of the castle or emerging into a classroom and upsetting, in a different way, the students and teachers sitting there. The stones opened in front of him like a mouth, and he sprang into them and was gone.

* * *

Draco had been irritated that his firecall went to the infirmary hearth and they had to wait, but at least Harry's "Knight" had apologized and gone to fetch him right away.

Really, the person Draco was worried about most when it came to the delay was Rosenthal. She hadn't moved since Draco had thrown the Floo powder in. She sat with her head bowed and her eyes fixed on her fingers, and Draco was afraid that she might be regretting that she'd agreed to this.

"What happened?"

And then Harry was there, his power visible around him almost in a blaze, and Draco decided that regrets were worth nothing in the face of that.

"I have someone with me who once helped gather evidence of your abuse," Draco said. "Now someone is trying to blackmail her into stopping her support of me—and you. Will you see her, and forgive her?"

Harry didn't blink for a long second. The power smoldering around him sprang into flame, a golden aura that haloed him, and then ran up and down and out with a wink. Harry nodded.

"Bring her through."

Draco turned and reached for Rosenthal's elbow, but she had already stood up with the Floo powder in her hand. And she did say "Hogwarts" when she cast it into the flame, despite Draco thinking she might have preferred a different destination. Draco watched not her back but Harry's face as they came out into the hospital wing.

For long seconds, Harry was still. Then he took a deep, noisy breath, shook his head a little, and met Draco's eyes.

"If I can forgive her, I will," he said. "Shall we begin?"

Draco felt a throb that wasn't magic and wasn't love beating beneath his breastbone as Rosenthal started her story. It took him long moments to identify it. Trust.

_I can trust him, Father. I really can. With lives and secrets that aren't mine, even._

_If you ever really believed in and trusted and followed a Lord, then I've found mine._


	31. On High

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-One—On High_

"It seemed harmless at first."

Harry said nothing, and simply waited for Rosenthal to speak again. He could see Draco, off to the side, darting a keen look at him, but Harry didn't see the need to react to that. Rosenthal had made the choice to come and speak to him about her part in taking those photographs, and Harry had made the choice to try and listen to her. He didn't know if he could forgive her yet, though, because so far, there seemed to be no details to forgive.

"But I think I knew all along that it was wrong," Rosenthal whispered, speaking to her hands. "Taking pictures of the Muggles that seemed to hate you. Listening to their voices. Seeing the visible evidence left on the house." She lifted her eyes and looked straight at Harry now.

Harry shook his head a little, refusing the pity in her face. He was past that now. He was _stronger _than that now. He had survived everyone in the wizarding world who could read knowing about his abusive past. Now he was in the position to make things happen, and if he didn't want to take vengeance on the Dursleys, nothing would stop him from fighting those who fought him, if they used these tactics.

So he waited, and Rosenthal finally got over expecting him to reassure her and went on. "I spoke with your aunt and uncle a few times. That was my assignment, to get as close to them as I could and find out as much as I could. I have—experience moving in the Muggle world. I didn't stand out as much as most of the other people the Ministry could send."

Harry nodded again, and waited.

"I asked, once, what the photographs were for." Rosenthal's fingers knotted themselves around each other again. Harry thought that was fine. If she suffered a little anxiety from this, that was _fine. _He might be a Dark Lord and a protector, but he had stopped being a savior. He wasn't going to protect people from their own demons. "The person who blackmailed me patted my head and told me not to worry about it. He said that they weren't even sure you would become dangerous, that this was just insurance in case you did."

Harry had known that. He'd _known _that. Fifernum had said as much.

But still, something, deeper inside than his conscious assumptions, maybe, froze and shattered. He found that he was breathing gently, as though drawing in more breath would result in an explosion of magic. Draco put his hand on his arm. Harry sat there and let Draco touch him, but didn't look away from Rosenthal.

"What?" Rosenthal added, and shifted around on the hospital bed she had chosen as her seat.

"His name," Harry said. "So far, you've only referred to him as the person who blackmailed you. What is his _name_?"

Rosenthal swallowed. Draco leaned forwards from the side as though he would be equally interested in the answer. Harry flicked a hand, low down, and Draco settled back. Harry didn't want Draco prejudicing the answers Harry might get from Rosenthal.

"I don't—I don't want to name him here," Rosenthal whispered.

"Can you name him or not?" If there was some sort of vow or magical restriction on speaking the name, then Harry thought he could remove it. If Rosenthal was delaying out of some stupid conviction that it would gain her more attention or more mercy, Harry intended to show her otherwise as soon as he could.

Rosenthal looked up at him, her eyes shimmering. "I mean, I don't want to name him in Hogwarts," she said. "A portrait might ensure that the name gets back to him."

Harry held up his hand. The castle tightened around him as he did, as magic flowed out of him and touched the walls and the doors and the windows and the floors. The stones shimmered and rippled and rang, and Harry could feel portrait frames tense up at the same moment. No portrait would be moving from one picture to another until he said so.

"You forget that I'm the avatar of Hogwarts," Harry told Rosenthal gently. "I control what happens in this school. You're welcome to walk away if that makes you nervous, but since you told me that you could name someone who knew I was being abused and yet wanted to leave me at the Dursleys', I think you can tell me who he is now."

Rosenthal stared at him, her jaw dangling a little. She took a glance at Draco, and that was what made her shut it. "Mammon Rosier," she said.

Harry blinked and dropped his hand, although his control over the school remained in place. "Rosier?" He hadn't thought there was anyone of that name left in power at the Ministry; hadn't they all been Death Eaters?

But no, there was a Rosier on the former Hogwarts Board of Governors, wasn't there? He'd met her when he threw the Board of Governors out of Hogwarts. But this seemed to be a different person. Maybe the whole family just disliked him because of what he'd done to Voldemort.

"Yes," Rosenthal said. By now, her hands were pressed together, as though she could make up for her dislike of him by praying. "You haven't heard of him?"

Harry listened to the tone of her voice as hard as he could. It seemed to convey a cautious relief. He shrugged mentally.

"I haven't," he said. "But I know at least one relative of his was a Death Eater, and one was on the Board of Governors who tried to close down Hogwarts. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise to me that someone like him wants to close down the school." Harry experienced a pulse of mild frustration. He would have liked to proceed through _one _day without another enemy turning up.

"He doesn't want to close down the school," Rosenthal said. "I shouldn't expect he cares about that. He wants to stop _you_ from becoming a political force."

"Then he wants to close down the school," Harry said. "Because my bond to it is what made me a political force."

"Your magic," Draco said, in a murmur so low that Harry wasn't sure if he had meant Rosenthal to overhear or not.

Harry waved a hand at him. "My magic wouldn't have come into play, or mattered, or been used, or been known to anyone except my close friends, if they hadn't decided that the Ministry should control Hogwarts."

Draco shut his jaw hard, and said nothing. Harry looked at him curiously, and then turned back around again and faced Rosenthal.

"Okay," he said. "So Rosier wanted to have evidence of my abuse. I'm more curious about something else. How did he _know _that I was being abused in the first place? What prompted him to look for evidence?"

"I don't know that," Rosenthal said quietly. "I did far less for him than I have for Candidate Malfoy. Gathering information was the extent of it. He had to tell me some things, because I had to know what I was looking for, but that didn't include where he came by it."

Harry nodded. He supposed that was something he could find out for himself, when he went and questioned Rosier.

Because he had no intention of skipping _that _step.

He leaned forwards and studied Rosenthal, in the meanwhile. She clasped her hands in front of her and arched her neck, so stiff and straight that Harry sighed a little.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "So I would appreciate it if you stopped acting as though I was going to torture you."

Rosenthal shot him a single, terrified look, and then clamped down on her emotions. "All right," she whispered.

Harry cocked his head. "There's still the idea of what I should do with you."

"I know." Rosenthal went back to staring at her hands again.

"I don't think I want to trust you at my back any time soon," Harry went on thoughtfully. "But while you're within Hogwarts, you can't hurt me, and I have the impression that you've been indispensable to my ally Malfoy." In front of someone else who didn't have family connections to Draco or wasn't one of Harry's close friends, that was as much as Harry was willing to claim from Draco right now.

He glanced at him, and saw that Draco was sitting up and frowning a little. He nodded grudgingly at Harry when Harry met his eyes, though. "She's been very useful," he said. "Although I'm not sure that I'm willing to trust her very far when I didn't know about this."

"I won't act against you," Rosenthal told the floor. "I came to you when Rosier tried to blackmail me."

"You did," Draco said. "Although I suspect it wasn't at the _beginning _of the blackmail, was it?"

Rosenthal licked her lips. "Not exactly," she said. "I received a threatening letter or two first, and they were so vague that I honestly wasn't sure what he wanted me to do. I thought—I thought I could continue to serve you, Candidate Malfoy, without doing anything about Potter."

Harry grunted. No wonder she hadn't been exactly enthusiastic, as Draco had told him, about things like finding an adviser for Harry.

"You can't," Draco said. "Not now. You're on the inside. You know that we're allies, and closer than the Ministry thinks we are." He didn't glance at Harry, so Harry had to bite his tongue. He still didn't know whether Rosenthal knew a lot about them being lovers, and whether it would be safe to refer to that in front of her. "You could damage both of us if we let you say whatever you wanted. I'm afraid that's out."

"I understand that." For a moment, Rosenthal sat up very stiff and straight. Then she slumped over again. "But I did think it would go away or didn't matter very much as long as they didn't ask me to betray _you_."

She was looking at Draco, who shrugged. "I accept that you couldn't have known Potter and I would become allies when you joined me," he said. "But that doesn't mean that giving him a name and an apology now is enough."

Rosenthal turned back to Harry. "Is it enough? What else do you want?"

Harry watched her for long enough that she was squirming around, despite being one of the more self-possessed women he'd ever met. He tapped his fingers on his legs again. Safe enough in Hogwarts, but not at Draco's back. Rosenthal might have told them everything, but might not have, and since Draco wanted to retain her services, questioning her under Veritaserum or keeping her here until she told them everything wasn't an option.

He held his hand out, concentrating. Magic brewed into being above his palm, so thick and golden that Rosenthal blinked and glanced away from it.

"This is part of what will determine your immediate future," Harry said. "So you might want to watch it."

That brought her head snapping back around. Harry nodded approval, although he doubted she noticed it. Good. He wouldn't want someone who was mostly a coward at Draco's back, either.

The golden light grew brighter and brighter, and changed shape as Harry changed his mind about what he wanted. On the one hand, he wanted to prevent her from betraying them again; on the other hand, he didn't want to get as intrusive as he had when casting the spell that bound Fifernum. Rosenthal had come to them and told the truth, if not exactly of her own free will.

The light rippled one more time, and settled into the shape of a muzzle. Harry eyed it, then shrugged. It would do as well as any other shape.

He looked up at Rosenthal, who was swaying on her chair, her face white. Harry rolled his eyes. "This isn't going to be literal," he said, and raised the muzzle to the level of her face. "This will keep you from talking about me at all, unless you're in a room alone with Draco or here at Hogwarts. If someone asks you about me while interviewing Draco, you'll just have to shrug and look mysterious."

Rosenthal nodded, once. "I never heard of a spell like that," she said.

"It isn't a spell so much as pure magic obeying my will," Harry said, and then had to smile, a little, at her expression. "Yes, I can do things like that. That's why it isn't a good idea to betray me."

Rosenthal swallowed. "I'm sure that Rosier didn't know anything about it," she whispered.

"Or he probably wouldn't have wanted you to go up against me." Harry smiled again. "Good. Now, will you wear this willingly?"

"Will it prevent me from betraying Candidate Malfoy?" Rosenthal's eyes were fixed on him now, and Harry couldn't read the emotions behind them. Perhaps pure practicality or concern for her job, if she was asking this. "I thought that was what you were most concerned about."

"I have to choose between keeping you useful for him and what you told me," Harry said. "Understand, though, you're only important to me because you're important to _him_. If it were just you and me, then I'd choose a different kind of vengeance altogether." He thought of what he'd done to Fifernum, and although of course Rosenthal didn't know about that, she could see the expression in his eyes.

She looked away. "I accept that I'm being spared worse because of my connection to Candidate Malfoy," she whispered. "I meant—I don't know what would keep Rosier from pressuring me to betray my employer next."

"_I'm _going to do that," Harry said. "The next time he communicates with you, if he does, then it's going to be after the little conversation I'm having with him in, oh, the next hour or so."

Rosenthal nodded. "You'll trust to that?"

Harry half-smiled. "No. Not completely. Your very reluctance to betray Draco gives you a kind of recommendation. I know that you didn't _want _to, and you didn't consider your own reputation so sacrosanct, because you told him the truth when he asked. For now, I'll trust to your honor and the fact that I'm giving Rosier other things to think about. If you do betray Draco anyway, then I'll deal with it."

Rosenthal spent a long moment sucking on the corner of her lip. "Can you do something like that for my hands, too?" she asked, nodding at the muzzle. "So that I can't write to anyone about you?"

Harry stretched his fingers and flexed his magic, and golden wrist-chains of power blazed into being on his palm. "Done."

Rosenthal stretched out her hands to receive them first, and then Harry slipped the muzzle around her head. She closed her eyes after it settled and the power sank into her skin, but Harry thought that was relief as much as anything. She really _hadn't _wanted to betray Draco, and while Harry mattered to her obviously less, as long as he was part of what Draco wanted, then he was also important to Rosenthal.

"Good," Harry said quietly. "The same restrictions apply to writing about me: you can do it alone with Draco or here. Nowhere else."

"Thank you," Rosenthal whispered, and rose as she looked at him. Yes, the relief was real. Harry nodded to her.

"Go back to work now," he said. "I'll deal with Rosier."

Draco shifted and caught Harry's eye. Harry raised his brows, then decided that wanting to wait to talk to him deserved some privacy. He nodded Rosenthal through the infirmary Floo, and she went, with only a glance back at Draco.

"What was it?" Harry asked, as he turned around to face Draco. "I know that you felt the punishment was fair, or you would have spoken up before now."

* * *

_Fair, yes. And also…fuck._

Draco was just glad that his clothes, thanks to advice from Blaise, usually had charms on them already that prevented spills from sticking or stains or other marks on his skin from showing, because otherwise Rosenthal would have noticed his erection as he watched Harry work.

He stood up and reached out to Harry. Harry blinked once, then grinned and rose to meet him, hooking his arms around Draco's neck as he kissed him. Draco rocked back, the power that still beat around Harry like a desert wind urging him down. And right behind them was one of the hospital wing beds, how convenient…

Harry broke away with a laugh and a shake of his head. "I want to, Draco, but I really _do _need to talk to Rosier." He would have said something else, Draco was sure, but a distant look came into his eyes and he turned his head. An instant letter, he held out his hand.

There was a blur and a zip, and an owl appeared in Harry's palm. From the way it shook its head and ruffled its feathers, it didn't like the experience of the school forcibly bringing it where it should go. Harry ignored that as he took the letter from its leg and opened the envelope.

"Ah," he said a second later.

Draco had experienced the complicated harmonics of that voice more than once already, and closed his eyes as he pressed a hand down between his legs. "From the Ministry?'

He opened his eyes to find Harry nodding. "To inform me that they will no longer give NEWTS and OWLS to any student at Hogwarts, or accept any student from Hogwarts into training for Ministry employments, like the Auror Program." Harry folded the letter twice, three, four times, and looked at it thoughtfully.

"Can I go along?" Draco didn't know how breathless he would sound until the question burst from him.

Harry looked up. "Go along where?"

"Go along with you when you teach the Ministry better."

Harry's smile spread like an oil stain. "Well, I have to talk to Rosier _anyway_," he said. "Get your glamours ready, and you can come."

Draco had never cast a glamour charm so fast.


	32. Like a Visiting King

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Two—Like a Visiting King_

Draco touched his face, and then dropped his hand. Doing that all the time would only make someone think he had something to hide.

Besides, Harry, walking in front of him, snapped his fingers casually back over his shoulder, and Draco got to see his face in the patch of air that suddenly turned shiny and reflective, like a mirror bobbing right above Harry's collarbone. Draco examined himself, and nodded. Really, the glamour just made his eyes and hair a bit less shiny and added some coarseness to his skin and angles to his cheekbones, but that was all to the good. Better to have people assume he was someone they were _slightly _familiar with than decide Harry had come in with a complete stranger.

"You're ready?"

Draco looked up again. The mirror vanished, and Harry had come to a stop in front of the common entrance to the Ministry, looking over his shoulder with a faint frown. Draco smiled and stepped forwards to squeeze his shoulder.

"I think you should be asking whether the Ministry is ready for _me_," he said.

Harry laughed and faced forwards again. When he gestured the numbers on the phone inside the box punched themselves. Draco craned his neck to watch it, a little curious. He had thought Harry would Apparate or Floo into the Ministry. They had proven that they couldn't keep him out when he went to punish Fifernum.

"I'm a visitor now," Harry said, either reading Draco's mind or capturing his gaze and understanding it. "I'm not an Auror. I think I should follow protocol for visitors, don't you?"

"You should follow whatever protocol you want to follow."

Harry looked over his shoulder and blinked this time before he laughed. "That would be more comfortable for my enemies than for me," he said. "I need rules."

Draco shrugged. "Just telling you the sort of thing you _could _do, if you wanted."

Harry drew his breath to respond, but a cool voice spoke out of the Ministry phonebox. "Mr. Potter. Your company is much appreciated. If you will Apparate directly to the Atrium and take the stairs to the Wizengamot courtroom on the tenth level, you will find your presence eagerly awaited."

Draco blinked. Harry blinked back, then shrugged. "They probably want to discuss the OWLs and NEWTS with me," he said. "And I'm agreeable, since I have _so very much _to discuss with them."

His eyes were harder than Draco had ever seen them as he held out an arm. After a moment, Draco realized Harry wanted to Side-Along him, and hurried in to take his arm.

Harry turned his head to whisper into Draco's ear. "I'll send you out if I get too angry. I don't want you to have to see that."

Draco started to tell him that there was nothing he would rather see, but by then, they were Apparating.

* * *

The Wizengamot courtroom looked exactly the way it had during the times when Harry testified for a case, only more crowded. All the Wizengamot members were there, even the ones whom most people could never get to stir. They leaned forwards and stared at him as he entered the room. A few people paid attention to Draco, too, trailing behind him, but not many.

_Good. _Harry knew that he might kill at a threat to Draco, the way he wouldn't at a threat to himself. It would be as well for everyone if no one paid attention.

The nearest Wizengamot member was a woman with heavy dark features that marked her as related to the Blacks, although Harry had never been sure of the exact degree of relation. He did know her name was Nigella Landen, though, and she was a cold bitch. She gave him a smile now and said, "Mr. Potter. You have come to listen?"

"I've come to listen, and talk," Harry said, and took a stand in front of the Wizengamot, ignoring the chairs that sat behind him, although he gestured for Draco to take one if he wanted. Like hell was he going to be sitting in front of some of the most arrogant wizards he'd ever known.

They exchanged glares for a while, and then Landen said, "You know that the Ministry no longer recognizes Hogwarts."

"I received the owl this morning," Harry said. He could see glances flying behind Landen's head, and none of them had much to do with what she was saying. They wanted to know why he hadn't come stomping in here with his magic boiling and demanded recognition of his students' OWLs and NEWTs immediately.

_Because that would be what you expected, _Harry answered them silently. _And I prefer not to do anything that you would expect. _He didn't fold his arms, but it was hard not to. He glared at the Wizengamot instead, and people winced and drew back. Then he returned his attention to Landen.

"You must realize that this is an untenable situation," Landen said, leaning back in her chair and linking her hands together over her stomach. She seemed to be enjoying his presence here rather than wetting her pants, Harry thought. Well, there were times that being a cold bitch would work out for her, no doubt. "Wizarding children in Britain deserve the best magical education, not to be shuffled aside by their own Ministry."

"I agree," Harry said. "Which is the reason that I disagreed with the Ministry's idea to close the school in the first place."

Landen sniffed. "It would have been for a few years, no more, while we came up with the best way to educate our children."

"What would have happened to the Muggleborns?" Harry asked softly. "And the children with no home other than Hogwarts? Have you thought about that?"

"Muggleborns are not the Ministry's concern unless they perform magic at home or officially become part of our world after leaving Hogwarts," Landen said. "And we know that you did not take over the school because you were worried about the students, Mr. Potter. We know that it was through misplaced nostalgia and considering Hogwarts your home."

"And what would happen if they performed magic at home during the years when the school was shut down?" Harry asked, and then shook his head. He was allowing himself to be swept up in stupid arguments, the way the Ministry wanted him to be. They were expert at dealing with their version of reality, the one where they were right and all their objections were reasonable. "Never mind. I think it'll be interesting to see how the students do at Hogwarts now, but in the meantime, I came to tell you that your plan won't work."

"Why not?" Landen gave every evidence of interest, swaying forwards until she almost knocked her chair over. "Why would you think that we _need _to give recognition to the OWLs and NEWTs if we don't want to?"

Harry shook his head and smiled. "Because I know some of the people on the Wizarding Examinations Authority Board." It was true, because he had sometimes investigated cases connected to them, and trained for one of his Auror classes in a manor that belonged to one of them. "I find it hard to believe that _everyone _will refuse to come and tell me how the exams are administered. Meanwhile, I know there are experts in other magical countries that handle their exams differently. If everything else fails, I could send my Hogwarts students to those countries to have their competency established. Unless you're going to tell me that you never accept any credentials equivalent to NEWTs and OWLs if someone moves here from France and wants to become an Auror."

Landen stiffened for a moment. Then she said, "Mr. Potter. You cannot continue to go outside the rules."

"I don't know why not," Harry said. "Given that I now know that people I'd never injured were collecting evidence of my abuse while I was a child, and did nothing about it. They collected it because they thought I _might _become a threat someday." He smiled at Landen. "You could say that I'm just fulfilling their predictions and using their tactics, by moving outside the rules."

Landen's smile had drained from her face. She watched Harry carefully for a moment, as if she thought it possible that he would tell her this was all a joke and laugh. Then she stood up and said, "Perhaps you would give me some names of the people you accuse of doing this to you."

"Minister Fudge," Harry said. Landen relaxed. Harry knew why. Fudge was no longer part of the Ministry, and it would be convenient for everyone if the blame could be cast on someone past and gone. "And Hammon Rosier."

There was a slight scuffle off to the side, although Harry didn't take his eyes off Landen and so didn't know if it was caused by someone trying to get away or not. Then the scuffle resolved itself into a tall, handsome, black-haired man stepping forwards and bowing to Harry.

"I am Hammon Rosier," he said. "Perhaps you could tell me what grudge you have against me?"

Harry measured him quickly with his eyes. Rosier was calm as he faced Harry, his arms not folded but clasped behind his back, and his smile was slight but easy. He reminded Harry of Fifernum. She had looked at him with the same coldness, at least until he had got hold of her and punished her. It wasn't _personal _with either one of them, knowing he had been abused or gathering the evidence. Rosier might not have approved of releasing the photographs, but only because he would keep them back and use them later, as it became more appropriate.

Harry knew all of that, which meant there was no reason for his heart to start pounding and his breath to come short, or for him to feel that he hated the man on sight.

He felt Draco shift behind him, silently reminding Harry that he was here. Harry felt his anger run out of him like lava from a volcano, and was actually able to smile, startling himself and probably Rosier, too, if the way he stared was any indication. But just knowing that he had one person with him who knew the truth and wouldn't be fooled by Rosier's words or on his side calmed Harry.

He smiled up at Rosier. "You sent people to my relatives' house to speak with them and collect their perspective of me," he said. "I can only think of one reason to do that. You wanted some kind of record that showed I was a disobedient child, a horrible one, a _freak_. One the Ministry didn't have to have anything to do with or support. Is that right?"

Rosier remained still, looking down at him. Harry swallowed the shout he wanted to give, and just stood there in return, until Rosier nodded. "You cannot blame me for collecting evidence," he said. "Not when you _have _turned out to be a political enemy."

"I am, now that I'm an adult," Harry said. He could hear members of the Wizengamot murmuring, but he didn't look away to see whose side they were taking. For the moment, this was between him and Rosier. "But the child me wasn't. What kind of enemy did you think a ten-year-old who was starving because he didn't get food every day _could _be?"

Rosier inclined his head again, his expression grave and reserved. "If you had grown up in the wizarding world, you would have understood more of your remarkable power and the way that adults could have used you. As it was, you were placed with a Muggle family by Albus Dumbledore, and manipulated by him. I am sorry to consider that, Mr. Potter. I think we might have understood each other better if you had been raised as you should have been and made your own way. As it is, you are still succumbing to Dumbledore's manipulations, seeing the world the way he did, thinking that you can defy lawful authority and be a good ruler that way."

Harry blinked. He could see why this particular Rosier had become a successful politician. He knew how to speak the truth in a way that mattered to the people he was trying to manipulate. Make it sound like Dumbledore was the source of all the problems, and he could slither out of responsibility.

But while Harry agreed that it was partially Dumbledore's fault, Dumbledore hadn't had _proof_ of his abuse, and employed a lot of other people to collect it, too, and then done nothing. Dumbledore had preferred to ignore his suspicions. That was painful, but not evil.

"You keep saying what you would have done had things been different," Harry said quietly. "But I'm interested in what you actually did. What excuses do you have for that?"

"Political expediency." Rosier considered him with so much calmness that Harry's spine prickled. That expression suggested he knew something of what Harry planned already, and wasn't afraid of it.

On the other hand, that pose could be another of Rosier's weapons that he employed to keep people from attacking him. Harry pushed through his own feelings and said, "Then you should realize that I took the school from the same motive, and I'm threatening to reach outside Britain for the same motive."

Rosier smiled at that. "No," he said. "You never do the politically expedient thing, Mr. Potter, or you would have remained part of the Ministry and done what you could to convince us to change our minds about Hogwarts." He reached out, and a flunky hurried up behind him and put a file folder in his hand. All the while, he never took his eyes from Harry. "Shall I tell you what else you've done? The crimes that you should have buried, if you always intended to become a political power, and did not? Which is another sign that you did not always intend to become a political power, of course."

Harry straightened his back as much as he could. It didn't surprise him that the Ministry had a file on him. What mattered was what was in it.

"Reveal my crimes," he said, "the way you've revealed that I was an abused child and an enemy to the Ministry from day one."

Rosier sighed as he flipped through the contents of the file. "It was not my decision to reveal that information. If I had my way, it would still be contained in letters, no more, waiting for the day when you became a still greater threat." He found something and nodded, looking up at Harry with a faint smile on his lips.

"It is true that you broke into Gringotts," he said. "And used the Imperius Curse as a means of doing so. Isn't it?"

Draco shifted a little behind Harry. Harry kept his eyes on Rosier. His magic would tell him if some threat was coming up from behind. "I was looking for an artifact of importance to the Dark Lord," he said. "And it _was _war."

"But the goblins have always been neutral." Rosier looked sternly at him. "They have told me themselves that you could have had what you wanted if you had bargained with them."

It didn't matter what the truth was, Harry thought. Rosier might even believe what he was saying. What mattered was how he could make it look, and the goblins were still angry enough about Harry, Ron, and Hermione being in Gringotts that they would help Rosier to spin it the way he wanted.

Harry had probably wasted his time by coming here. He might as well speak the truth and have it out now.

He stood up straighter, and let the magic that had been flowing and draping around his shoulders come into him, into his limbs and the way he gestured. Rosier fell back despite himself, and then narrowed his eyes and firmed his own shoulders, as though to show anyone watching that he had nothing to fear.

"You cannot kill me without repercussions, Mr. Potter," he said softly.

"I can tell you that your blackmailing's going to stop," Harry said. "I know the truth about you now, and I know that you don't care that much about Hogwarts, only making me less of a political force." He watched as Rosier's face paled, and nodded. Rosier must not have thought that Rosenthal would say anything about him.

"_Draconis_," Harry said.

His magic foamed and formed into a transparent draconic shape, which flew up into the rafters and crouched there, snarling at Rosier. Harry looked remotely at him. "I'll still leave you free to act against me," he said. "Although you may not want to, in the future. But if you try to blackmail the person who revealed you to me again, or do anything at all to them, including mentioning their name to someone else, that dragon is going to come down and scratch you. One talon-mark for every word you spoke or wrote." He smiled at Rosier. "I thought you might like some blackmail of your own."

He turned and stormed out of the Ministry, despite the shouts from the Wizengamot for him to stop. He ought to have known, he thought. Of course the Ministry wouldn't respond to logical arguments or admit that they had been wrong to close Hogwarts down. Of course Rosier wouldn't apologize for the abuse or react to anything other than threats. They were skilled politicians, and Harry wasn't. He could have intimidated them from the beginning, and the results would have been the same.

At least he had protected Rosenthal, the person who had come to him for protection. That was something to be proud of.

"_Harry_."

The glamour didn't resemble Draco's voice, luckily. That was the only consolation Harry had as he spoke the word, and then leaped on top of Harry, bearing him down to the ground.

So the sparkling net of magic that went off in the air a moment later coalesced around Draco's head, and not Harry's. When Harry knocked Draco off him and rolled back over, he could see that.

And he recognized the color of the net, bright green, and the way Draco moaned and shut his eyes and clapped his hands to his head.

The net was a legal version of the Imperius Curse, meant to control someone's actions and dig under their impulses, mastering them and giving them a new set of goals without alerting them the way that the floating feeling of the curse itself could.

Harry glanced up to see Rosier stepping down the corridor, his wand extended.

Whether or not he was responsible for the net, Harry didn't know, and didn't care, as he brought his magic up.

_No wonder they wanted me to come here. It wasn't so much a chance to convince me as it was a trap._

And Harry could play this game. Oh, yes he could.


	33. Carrying the Battle to the Enemy

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Three—Carrying the Battle to the Enemy_

Harry let the magic _flow._

He stepped out of the way, in his mind and in his magical core, and the power lapped and leaped through him, fast enough that he felt as if his mind was whirling away with it on the tide. He was sure that he could get control over it any time he wanted, though, so he waited to see what it would do. He hadn't really known the kind of restrictions he would dream up for Rosenthal before he did, and he hadn't known he would come up with the dragon that could scratch Rosier.

The magic settled into a heavy, fire-colored lump. Harry was disappointed for a second. Compared to a lot of the other things he'd created, it didn't look very, well, creative.

Then the creature turned and stared at him, and Harry realized it did have a head, although it was sunk and buried in the weight of the thing's shoulders. It unfolded its neck, _unfurled _it, and following it into existence came a pair of great wings. The creature extended on and on, up and up, until its body filled most of the corridor, curling and shifting, and Harry recognized it as a dragon.

Just a dragon much bigger than the one he had created to watch over Rosier, and one that had glowing golden eyes and claws that blazed with inner light.

Harry swallowed. He knew the dragon was waiting for instructions, but he wanted to circle around it for one second, touch the plates of its scales. The dragon let him do it. The scales felt like warm, heavy coins beneath Harry's hand.

Harry smiled up at it. "I want you to frighten them," he said, in what could have been either English or Parseltongue. He didn't know at the moment, and he didn't care. "I want you to herd them with fire into the center of the Wizengamot's courtroom and hold them there, until I come."

The dragon's wings creaked in response and it slithered down the corridor. Harry watched it go, shaking his head a little. And then he turned back to Draco and knelt next to him. Now that the immediate need for revenge was over, he thought his magic would be a little gentler, and that meant he could try seeing what the spell had done to Draco.

"Draco?" he whispered, keeping his voice low enough so that no one creeping up the corridor could hear him. No need to let them know that the person who had accompanied Harry and stood at his shoulder was one of the candidates for Minister.

* * *

Draco heard the word from across a great gulf. He knew his name, and he knew that he had to wait here until someone told him to come. He had to wait for orders. That was the central purpose of his being, and this country, which was fire-colored and constantly shifting, would be his home until it was realized.

Now he felt the rest of his being pivoting to look outside himself. He knew that something was coming, knew that he would be rewarded soon, told to follow orders and do as he was supposed to. And a voice spoke his name. It was still his name. It was the key to his existence. He stood and turned in that direction, and reconnected with his body.

When he opened his eyes, Harry was bending over him. Draco knew the name, but more than that, he knew the impulse that flowed through his body, the impulse of absolute and imperative obedience. He nodded and said, "Yes, sir?"

Harry paused, then cursed. Draco couldn't understand what for. Maybe he didn't want Draco to obey him.

Draco felt a flicker in him, the sharp struggle that began in a few moments and stopped after a few more. Maybe he didn't want to be a slave, not all of him. Maybe this wasn't the life that he would have chosen. Draco shrugged mentally. It was the life that he had.

"Yes, sir?" he repeated again. It was the only set of words he could use until his master told him to say something else.

Harry paused, a tongue darting out to lick his lips. Draco felt a response beneath his conscious mind, on the level of flesh and blood. Once, he thought, he would have been very happy to feel that response. He would have liked to see Harry lick his lips that way.

But Draco couldn't remember why. And it was tiring to concentrate on issues like that, on things he wasn't _supposed _to think about. Instead, he stood at attention, and when Harry asked, "Do you know who cast the spell on you?", he was ready to answer, even though the question didn't make much sense at first.

"I can feel the intention through the magic, sir," he said, cocking his head and trying to think. Distantly, as though it was a childhood memory, he knew he'd knocked Harry to the ground, and he remembered the spell going off around his head. There was a name in there, a murmur and a rhythm to the magic that Draco didn't think he was supposed to hear, but he heard it anyway, because he was good at that.

There was a flash of pride. Was that inappropriate? Draco didn't know. He thought he was just supposed to be proud to serve his master, not about anything else, but to be honest, he didn't think he could manage that.

There was so much going on in his head, impulses fighting and clashing. Draco thought he would be glad if Harry gave him more direct orders, so that he could rest and obey and do what he was supposed to do in the first place.

"And the name that the magic gave was Hammon Rosier," Draco said.

He couldn't remember that, either. Was that the man he was supposed to obey, instead of Harry? But Harry gave a savage smile, and Draco decided that it didn't matter. Harry was stronger, and closer, and more frightening. Draco would listen to him and do what _he _told Draco to do, and that would probably be okay.

"Good," Harry said, and reached out to put his hands on Draco's shoulders, gazing deeply into his eyes. "I know this is probably frightening for you. I promise, I'll figure out how to reverse the spell as soon as possible. And Rosier will _pay _for this."

Another flash from Draco's buried thoughts, this time of satisfaction. He decided that he might as well just accept it, since he wouldn't get any answers any time soon, and settle back to wait for further instruction.

* * *

Harry stood. He could feel his thoughts tangling around each other, snarling, flailing, and hitting each other with their feet. He didn't think he cared.

His mind was on Rosier, and the dragon that would have flown into the Wizengamot courtroom a short time ago and caged him there.

Harry smiled. He suddenly thought he'd like to see the courtroom, and the rage and hatred that would be etched into Rosier's face. Or would there only be fear?

He started up the corridor, and paused when he realized that Draco was standing still behind him. Then he remembered the limitations of the spell, and stifled a sigh. He didn't want Draco to think that Harry was irritated with _him_.

"Come on, Draco," he said.

"Yes, sir," Draco said, and fell into step behind him, as light and fast as though he wanted to obey Harry's every desire. Of course, given the spell, right now that wasn't far from the truth.

Harry narrowed his eyes in silent thought. He wanted to do something to Rosier that would punish him for this, but he also didn't want to reveal that it was Draco the spell had seized. Who could he come up with that would be important enough to him to justify the kind of vengeance he was going to take?

Then Harry smiled and shook his head. He had almost forgotten that he didn't _need _to come up with someone. He just had to show his hand as a Dark Lord, the same hand he had decided he was going to show when he made his promise to Rosenthal, and set the first dragon on Rosier.

Any of his people were important to him. Any of his people, he would fight to protect. And for all the Wizengamot knew, Draco was one of his people, since he was disguised.

_Not revealing our relationship turned out to be a good thing, after all._

* * *

When they entered the Wizengamot courtroom, Harry saw Rosier at once. He stood at the front of the group of people that the dragon had herded into the center of the room, his arms spread as though he was defending them. His wand was in his hand, but he hadn't raised it. He probably knew there was nothing he could do against Harry's magic.

Harry strode forwards, smiling. He lifted his hands, and the dragon turned into phantom flame and billowed over to settle on his shoulders. For a moment, the fire flickered there, the flames trailing like banners and snapping at each other. Then they faded, and Rosier turned and looked at him in the clear light.

"I assume this is some demonstration of your powers as a Dark Lord." Rosier's voice was low and charged, and he didn't look away from Harry's face. Harry wondered for a second why he wasn't trying to assert his control through the spell that he had used to trap Draco, then smiled again. The dragon itself would have told Rosier that Harry hadn't fallen into his trap.

"It is," Harry said. "Since you left a trap for one of my people, and made it clear that you don't give a _shit _about my freedom."

Rosier sharpened his gaze and his stance. Harry could almost feel his mind ticking over. If Harry thought it was a trap for his people and not him, then Rosier might escape from this. Harry wouldn't know that Rosier had meant to control _him _instead.

Harry would have laughed in pity if the rage burning inside him had let him. Hurting one of his people was _worse _than hurting him. Rosier attributed his own ideals to Harry, seeming to think Harry valued his own skin more than those who supported him.

"Can you prove this?" Rosier asked, his voice soft and passionless. "Your man looks fine to me."

Harry turned to Draco. "Come forwards and stand here," he said. He would use no names, not even fake ones. There was no need to set up a false identity that the Ministry could later prove false.

Draco moved forwards, his eyes glazed. Harry looked over the Wizengamot and chose Landen, who was staring back at him, motionless. "Madam Landen," he said. "Would you mind casting a spell that would reveal the trace of any mind-control hex?"

"If you are accusing Master Rosier of using the Imperius Curse, then you should simply say so," said Landen, fingering her wand.

"Everyone knows that using one of the Unforgiveables inside the Ministry would trigger all sorts of wards," Harry said. "No, I am accusing Master Rosier of being more subtle than that. Cast the spell, please, Madam Landen."

Landen did it, staring at him all the time as though Harry had gone mad. Harry didn't look away from Rosier. He seemed cool, standing there, but it was possible that he would break and run once he realized what the spell said about him. Harry wanted to be sure that that didn't happen.

The incantation Landen used, one of several that would tell whether someone had used the Imperius Curse, one of its relatives, Legilimency, or even a compulsion potion, rose into the air and danced away to coil around Draco's head. For a long second, it hovered there, a luminous cloud, and Harry wondered whether Rosier had been clever enough to use a variant of the normal curse that couldn't be detected.

Then the cloud flashed a bright and angry red. Harry smiled, but he saw the way Rosier took a step back despite himself, and thought he knew what the smile looked like.

"You cannot prove that I was the one who used it," Rosier said, his lips barely moving. "You have many enemies. Any one of them might have used the chance to try and snare—one of your people."

_He nearly said "you," _Harry thought. _He's rattled. Maybe I can push him into making a mistake, if I shove hard enough._

"And how many of those enemies would have known that I was coming to the Ministry today?" he asked softly. "How many of them would invite me to the Wizengamot's courtroom? How many of them would have recently tried to blackmail someone into hurting me, or admitted that they knew about the abuse I suffered and yet chose to continue letting me suffer anyway?"

Rosier looked him straight in the eye and lied. "Any of them could have known, if they were on the Wizengamot. Plenty of people know about your abuse now, thanks to the pictures that…certain people were unwise enough to spread. I am your enemy, Mr. Potter, but I hope that that doesn't extend to using mind control spells on the helpless people who follow you."

Landen stepped back, putting distance between herself and Rosier, maybe without even realizing it. Harry thought, _She knew, _and shoved again, hard. "What would I see if I was to look into your mind right now?" he asked. "Or use Veritaserum on you? Would I see what you just told me, or would I see the truth of what I _know_?"

Rosier raised his eyebrows. "Have you gained an unexpected gift in the brewing of controlled potions, Mr. Potter? Nothing that I remember reading about you said that you were skilled at making Veritaserum. And no one else has ever claimed that you were a skilled Legilimens, either, despite the rumors about you being trained by Albus Dumbledore himself."

_Damn cold politician. _Harry took a step forwards, and ignored the flinches from Landen and a few other people. He would deal with them later, if they _had _known. For now, he was more interested in Rosier. "I don't need to use Legilimens to tear apart your mind," he said. "Even to make the contents visible to other people. It would be easier on you if you just confessed, Mr. Rosier."

"That would imply that I was guilty," Rosier said, still meeting Harry's eyes with no sign that he was angry or upset. "And my proper title is Master Rosier, as you were giving me just a moment ago. What has changed? Because you still have no proof of your ridiculous claim."

Harry stiffened. Rosier had a slight smile on his lips now, as though he thought Harry would walk out of here because Rosier could speak smooth words and had a smooth, lying tongue.

That was _it. _Harry was done playing by the rules, especially when all of them _knew _that Rosier had planned to trap Harry and control his mind, and had actually done it with Draco, and kept supporting Rosier _anyway_.

Harry plunged. There was a sensation like falling down a long tunnel, and then Rosier's thoughts were streaming past him. Brightly-colored memories of conquering enemies contrasted with beige ones of meetings in the Ministry, and Rosier was screaming at him in shock and telling him to get out, _get out_.

He couldn't push Harry out, though. This wasn't Legilimency in the traditional sense. This was the tearing apart that Harry had promised, and he shot and cut through Rosier's mind until he found the memory that he sought: the meeting where he had persuaded several other Wizengamot members that Harry would be less dangerous with this spell on his mind.

Harry yanked the memory back out and made it solid, made it play for the others. Garbled words filled the air, becoming more real a moment later.

"—sure this will work?" That was Landen's voice. Harry pivoted slowly towards her, and Landen went white.

"Yes." Rosier, smooth and cool as he had been only a few moments ago, as he wasn't now, lying on the floor screaming and bleeding from the eyeballs. "There's no other way we can safely control him, but we _have _to control him somehow. It's just going to take careful handling of him in the right way. Leave the trap up to me. We'll spring it in the corridor leading up to the courtroom. That way, no one can accuse us of doing something to him in the middle of the ridiculous speech he'll no doubt make to us."

The images and words came to a halt as Harry lifted his hand, and the memory dissipated. Blood was throbbing in his ears, and he wanted to strike, he wanted to hurt, he wanted to injure, he wanted to _kill_.

"You were going to do that to me," he said. "I think it only fair that you should experience some of what it's like." He twisted his hand and focused his will and magic, and Rosier floated back to his feet, still scrabbling at his eyes. The blood wouldn't stop trickling from the corners of his eyeballs, at least until Harry eyed him with contempt and fire cauterized the savage tears.

"Yes, I think you should know what it's like," Harry said. "For one moment, one moment only. _Dissolvo obices._"


	34. Dissolvo Obices

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Four—Dissolvo Obices_

Harry thought he saw Landen's eyes shut in relief for a moment before the spell struck. The incantation was a simple one that would make someone say the most embarrassing thing in their head at the time. It could dissolve inhibitions or barriers, but because it was so limited, it was mostly restricted to a hex between joking friends or jealous lovers.

Harry had to smile at Landen as the light of the spell flared in a corona around her head and Rosier's. Landen ought to have remembered the power of his magic and the things that he could make spells do now.

Sure enough, Landen took a stiff step forwards a moment later and spoke to Rosier. "Do you ever care about anything other than your own family's advancement?"

Rosier turned to her. He was so blank-eyed that he might have been under the same spell that he'd cursed Draco with, but he shook his head and said, "I care about the fact that all I can do in most of our planning sessions is stare at your breasts."

In most cases of the spell, the effect would have ended there. They had both said something embarrassing, and the hex simply wasn't that powerful.

But Harry had chosen those words, even more than the magic, for a reason, and it went on.

Landen tore open her robes and shirt, or tried. They were thick enough that the cloth resisted her hands, and hung at her sides as she panted at Rosier, "I thought you would _never _say that."

Rosier leaned forwards and buried his head in her chest, snuffling and licking. Landen staggered back in front of him, falling to the floor with her hands on either side of his head.

The other Wizengamot members were staring. Harry saw more than one red face, more than one chin quivering with suppressed laughter, and eyes darting to him and then away again, as if they wondered whether he had caused this.

But Harry had said the spell aloud for his audience's benefit as much as for the benefit of Landen and Rosier, once they regained their senses. It was supposed to be harmless. It wasn't kind, but all Harry had done was bring out desires that had already been there, not created them.

Rosier was still snuffling and burrowing like some kind of demented pig, and Landen was still stroking his face. Then she tripped on the hem of her half-torn robe, and they fell on the floor, and went rolling around, too caught up in what was happening to them right at the moment even to strip each other naked.

Harry watched with his lips twitching. He didn't really want to laugh, though, the way that some of the other Wizengamot members had succumbed to. The emotion that filled him was a lot worse, a lot more savage, than amusement.

He could have done worse. He _wanted _to do worse.

But he might need Rosier's help to remove the spell from Draco, and so he had left him alive and sane. That was the only reason, though. And it was a fragile barrier against the beating fire of his temper.

Harry found his hand rising, as though someone else was directing it. He shook his head in irritation and pulled it back down. No, he wouldn't strike Rosier dead, or Landen either, although he could do it right now, and easily. His magic might throb around him, as dangerous and, in its way, as disgusting as their unfulfilled passion, but he wasn't going to hurl it at them.

Depending on what Rosier said and did after he returned to his right mind, though…

Harry had to admit that he might let it go _then_.

Rosier was on top of Landen now, rubbing against her leg as though it was the only thing that existed in the world for him. Landen had her head thrown back, gaping at the ceiling. Because control of basic bodily functions was another thing stripped from her by the spell, a thin line of drool was running down her chin.

Harry counted down the seconds, his eyes fixed on the red flush on Rosier's face, and his ears attuned to Rosier's breathing. When Rosier had risen to his knees above Landen and opened his mouth, Harry released the spell.

Rosier, frozen a few seconds away from embarrassing himself very publically indeed, stared slowly around the courtroom. His eyes came to Harry last, after studying every one of his flushed colleagues. Then he climbed to his feet and wiped the drool away from his own lips with a trembling hand. Beneath him, Landen was trying to cover up.

Harry held his eyes. "I can do worse than that," he said. "Cast the countercurse on my man. And it had _better _be the countercurse," he added, as Rosier's hand inched towards his wand. "If you cast anything else…"

He thought the green sparks falling around his fingers, the color of the Killing Curse, spoke eloquently enough for him, but he did lift his hand in case Rosier didn't get it.

Rosier's face was drained as he slowly lifted his wand. Harry watched and judged angles, and his eyes went back to Rosier's face as he opened his mouth.

So Harry was prepared when Rosier abruptly whirled on him and attempted to cast something else, although his voice was a wordless shriek instead of an incantation, so what it was really meant to be, Harry never knew.

Harry slashed his hand sideways. Rosier spun around twice, and his wand clattered out of his hand. Harry spun him back around, and then froze Rosier in place with a twitch of his finger and advanced on him. Rosier was still staring at him, eyes bulging, and Harry could feel rage and fear fighting so strongly for possession of him that it would be impossible to say which was worse.

"I told you," Harry breathed. "And I think that I'm tired of warning you and giving you second chances. Tired of playing _nice_."

Rosier tried again to flex his muscles against Harry's magic, and someone from the side gave a low murmur of protest. Harry paid no attention. He _was _tired of warning people, of trying to anticipate what they would do and then make his response proportional.

_And people like Rosier are never going to think it's proportional, _Harry thought cynically to himself as he watched Rosier struggle. _They'll say it's my fault no matter what happens. They'll whine and complain and make it clear that I was the one who _made _them do something. I could quit calling myself a Dark Lord and dedicate myself to Light magic for the rest of my life, and there would still be someone waiting for me to trip up and kill people. Hell, they were planning for me to be their future political enemy when I was _eleven.

"Did it ever occur to you that I might not have been your enemy if you had rescued me from the abuse and made me grateful to you?" Harry asked Rosier softly. He didn't loosen his magic enough to let the man reply, of course, but he was interested in seeing the expressions that crossed his face as he listened to Harry's words. "You could have left me there until things got _really _bad, as based on your own pictures, and then taken me away. You, or someone else. You could have raised me to be loyal to the Ministry, and hate Dumbledore, once I found out that _he _was the one who left me with my relatives. That would have been the _smart _political thing to do. Instead, you left things alone to fester, and now you object to dealing with the festering."

Rosier stared at him with those bulging eyes, but the rest of his face was clear enough; Harry only had a tight grip on him to prevent him from moving his jaw. It didn't prevent the rest of his muscles flexing, or his forehead from wrinkling.

And at the moment, he was staring at Harry as if he'd never seen him before. No, Harry thought, the notion piercing to the heart of him, not so much for himself—he had survived, he was grown and he could protect his own interests now—as for the other children that might have been left in situations like his. Maybe the Ministry wouldn't take pictures of their abuse and try to use them to manipulate those children later, but they could project the same vast indifference.

"You like to think that you're a master of politics," Harry said. His voice had lowered. He couldn't help it. Besides, everyone else in the chamber was breathless with listening, so it wasn't like he needed to speak up to be heard. "You think you would do anything to control your enemies and keep them from toppling your political position. But if you never _thought, _not _once, _about using kindness as a tool instead of manipulation, then you're _stupid_." Harry laughed, and ignored the way that not only Rosier but a bunch of other people flinched. "Dumbledore told me that love was the power the Dark Lord knew not. It seems that now it's the power that the Dark Lord knows, and the Ministry never thought of."

"You think luxury and kindness would have worked to turn a heart as Dark as yours?" Landen gasped, struggling to her feet. Harry was completely aware of her, although he didn't turn his gaze away from Rosier. "They wouldn't have worked. We would have wasted time and resources that could be better spent on something else—"

"I'm tired of your voice," Harry said casually, not turning to her, and her lips sealed themselves.

Harry moved a step closer to Rosier, never taking his eyes from him. Rosier now looked frightened enough to piss himself, although there was, frankly, already a wet patch on his robes, and Harry couldn't be arsed to try to distinguish one from the other.

"I think that I wouldn't have gone Dark if you had tried something else," Harry said. "Maybe not. But who's more likely to be Dark, the child abused most of his life who later finds out that at least some adults knew _perfectly well _what was happening and didn't bother to step in, or the child rescued at a young age?"

"There were blood wards," someone else in the Wizengamot murmured.

"You can't simultaneously hate Dumbledore and work against him, and then believe everything he says," Harry said. He could feel another emotion swelling in him, like a faraway wave, roiling and black. He didn't know what it was yet, and he didn't know what he would feel when it got here. For the moment, he ignored it. "I could have been your friend, your _pet. _You could have raised me, trained me, molded me to be anything you wanted, the way you thought Dumbledore would," he went on, turning back to Rosier. "But instead, you couldn't be _bothered_. Nobody could."

The same way Dumbledore and McGonagall had thought he might be unhappy with the Dursleys, that he might have a _reason _to be, but they couldn't interfere because it would complicate things too much.

Harry knew the way Dumbledore's thoughts would run. Who would take him? What would they do with Harry during summers in the wizarding world? Who would make sure that he behaved when his relatives weren't watching him? Who would discipline him if he had problems during the school year?

It was all so _hard, _so complicated, and it might mess up Dumbledore's plans further, Harry thought, his mind speeding along tracks that he was sure Dumbledore's had taken. If Dumbledore hadn't wanted to tell Harry the prophecy when he was eleven because he loved him so much, could he have sent Harry to his death to slaughter the Horcrux if he had been the one to rescue and raise him?

The wave broke on him.

It was rage, and sorrow.

Harry took a step towards Rosier. He could feel the uneasy way that some of the others were watching him, but he couldn't bring himself to care. They could be uneasy all they wanted. They hadn't stopped Rosier and Landen, and they hadn't cared about his abuse. He was willing to bet that more people than just Rosier were aware of it, too, whether or not they had actually participated in gathering the evidence. They hadn't cared. He needn't care about them.

"I couldn't make you suffer what I did," he whispered. "There's no way to bring it all back, and no spell that can turn back time and put you in my place."

His magic eddied for a second, and Harry took the time to consider that maybe he _could _bend the laws of the past and subject Rosier to the same abuse he had taken from the Dursleys. But then he shook his head. He would mess up trying to do that, and he wanted to walk out of this tangle of shit with a clear conscience. Hurting innocents, the way he probably would without more experience with time travel, was still impossible.

"But I can do this," Harry said, and he clenched his hands down, working his fingers deeper and deeper into his palms, imagining the result he wanted.

Some of the months he had lived with the Dursleys was blurred in his memories, and would not come back. So even if he'd wanted to inflict all the pain on Rosier, he couldn't. But he remembered some things very well.

So he breathed them into the air, a pulsing, lead-grey mist that drifted towards Rosier. Harry's magic opened his mouth, and Harry's magic made his lungs inflate so that he inhaled it. Harry watched him, and although he knew Rosier felt the spell affecting his body, he gave Harry a baffled look.

Harry nodded. "I knew you wouldn't understand, so I'm going to explain," he said gently. "Whenever you ignore child abuse from now on, you're going to suffer an injury I did. Maybe one of your bones will break. Maybe you'll suddenly lose all sorts of weight and become malnourished for months on end. Maybe you'll find yourself in a small dark space that won't release you except at someone else's will." He paused and smiled, watching Rosier's face continue to pale. "Make that mine."

Harry leaned forwards and lowered his voice. "And if you attack _any _of my people again, all of those injuries are going to fall on you at once. It's in you now, hiding there. Your bones are inherently fragile. Your mind is inherently prone to start imagining things that aren't there, if it will satisfy the curse. It's a disease that can flare up at any time, if you do the wrong thing." He bared his teeth at Rosier's horrified expression. "It'll probably kill you, to have to survive what I survived for ten years in the space of a few seconds. I wouldn't test it."

He turned away and gestured to Landen. She squeaked as her tongue twisted in her mouth, and she clapped her hands to her lips. Harry glanced at her.

"You can speak now, but I think that you shouldn't plot against any of my people," he said mildly. "I think you'll find that your tongue grows a needle that pierces the bottom of your mouth if you do."

Landen backed away from him, her hand still over her lips. Harry turned his back again and walked towards Draco, his head up. Draco continued to look at him with blank, oblivious eyes.

Harry could feel the tremble in his lungs, although no one else noticed it—he hoped. Using so much magic at once, and so far away from the center of his strength, Hogwarts, made him feel as though he had been running long-distance for hours. He needed to go back home, and rest. And he needed to wait a while before he tried to snap the spell on Draco, much as he hated that. He wasn't about to ask Rosier for help again, and if he tried it when tired, he would mess things up in a different way.

He did pause to touch Draco's head, and Draco looked up at him. "We're going home," Harry told him softly. "Come on."

Draco followed him obediently out of the courtroom. No harm in that, Harry thought. Everyone there was aware of the obedience curse that Rosier had put him under, and no one knew who he really was.

And no one was saying a word.

* * *

Draco could feel distant emotions, clawing up in his mind slowly, as if from the bottom of a deep pit. He thought some were horror, and some were rage.

And some were satisfaction.

He looked ahead of him, at the walking form of his master who was not his master, and it wasn't the curse that made him not resist when they reached a fireplace and could Floo through it. It wasn't the curse that made him lean on Harry and shut his eyes, and sigh when they tumbled out into a room where the stones picked Harry up and urged him along towards the chair in the corner.

"We'll free you soon," Harry whispered into his ear, stroking his back. "I promise."

Draco knew he wanted to be free, knew with a kind of drifting intellectual curiosity that this was not the person he _really _was, and things would look different when he got back to being that person. But for now, the concern, the care, the way those hands trembled on him, for him, was enough.


	35. To the Heart

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Five—To the Heart_

"What's wrong with Malfoy?"

Harry sighed and glanced up at the door of his office. He hadn't wanted Hermione or Ron to see Draco like this, partly because they would start asking questions about how close Draco and Harry were, and partly because Draco's pride wouldn't forgive it. But Harry was still reading a book about the Mind Arts to make sure that he wouldn't hurt Draco when he took the curse off him, and Hermione stood there with her mouth open.

Harry turned, just to make sure that he was seeing the same thing she was. Draco lay in the center of the couch that Harry had Transfigured a few empty chairs into, his legs sprawled so that they were almost draped over the end of it. His mouth was open, too, but in a deep snore. Harry couldn't help smiling when he looked at him.

"What's he doing here?" At least Hermione had lowered her voice.

Harry turned around. "We went and talked to the Wizengamot," he said, his words even softer, so that Hermione stepped into the office and shut the door. "They were awaiting me. One of their officials, Hammon Rosier, was behind blackmailing someone who works with Draco to try and expose even more information about my past."

"What would someone who works with Malfoy know—"

"She helped collect the information on my abuse," Harry said, and shook his head when he saw the look Hermione was giving him. "She did it for despicable reasons, including being paid, but I think Rosier is more despicable."

"Well, of _course_," Hermione said, giving her robes a little shake. "But I can't believe you would trust the word of someone like that enough to go to the Ministry."

Harry shrugged. "You know that I can make it so no one can tell lies around me." That magic had been in effect when he spoke to most of the people he was considering hiring as professors. He didn't want someone who came in on fraudulent accomplishments the way Lockhart had, and God forbid that they got someone like Crouch or Quirrell again. "I did it with her. I'm pretty sure that she told the truth. And when we went to the Ministry, Rosier was waiting for me. I didn't manage to convince him to back down, and he tried to use that spell that controls your mind like the Imperius Curse but isn't illegal. It hit Draco instead."

"He pushed you to the floor or something?" Hermione darted another glance at the couch, as if waiting for the real hero to crawl out from underneath it.

"Yes. That's exactly what happened."

Hermione spun around again and stared at him. Then she started shaking her head. "Oh, Harry. No."

"What?" Harry rubbed his forehead and turned back to his book. He hadn't found a lot of information about the curse so far that would enable him to remove it safely, but he didn't think that made it a good idea to give up. "He risked himself for me. The least I can do is restore his mental freedom to him. I probably _could _just reach out and grip the edges of the spell and pull, but I don't want to do that, in case it hurts him. So I'm trying to research a way to get it off him safely. Want to help me?"

"Listen," Hermione said, her voice charged. "That's not what I meant. I know that you think you have a—close bond with Malfoy, but if you think that, you're fooling yourself."

Harry gaped at her for a second. Then he held out his hand, which shimmered with magic gathering in his palm. "I can make someone tell the truth, remember?"

"Have you done it with him?"

At the moment, it was hard for Harry to remember. He probably had, when he had forced Fifernum to tell the truth and Draco had been hiding in the room and watching her punishment, but that wasn't the sort of thing he could admit to Hermione. He shook his head. "Does that matter? I know that he trusts me and he risked his life for me when he pushed me to the floor. Neither of us knew what the spell would do."

Hermione cast another look at Draco, then turned to Harry and lowered her voice. "Listen. I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve to have his freedom back. I just think that you need to think very carefully about sleeping with him."

"I haven't _slept _with him!" Harry let his voice rise until he saw the way it was making Draco stir. _Yet._

"But you want to." Hermione's face was a little grim. "I mean—I can't tell you what to do with your life, Harry. But Malfoy is still running for Minister, and even if he's convincing, even if he wants to sleep with you for personal reasons, can you say that you aren't helping his campaign in any way?"

Harry shook his head. "Not in _any_ way. I did show up at that debate where Blackthorne swore to be my Knight and stopped the Minister from arresting him."

Hermione sighed. "That's confirmation enough. You should be neutral, Harry. You shouldn't act outside Hogwarts, since you sent everyone letters saying that you were the Dark Lord of the school and you just wanted it to be open. You can't _do _anything else."

Harry gave her a flat stare. "So, if the Wizengamot passes a law saying that anyone can hunt down Hogwarts students, or it's fine for parents to go ahead and abuse their children if they try to sneak out and go to Hogwarts, then I shouldn't do anything?"

Hermione blinked. "That would be—they won't do anything like that. They wouldn't condone child abuse."

Harry began to laugh, and at the moment, he didn't care if it woke Draco up. That was just so _absurd. _And Hermione knew all about the photographs, too, even if she didn't know the specifics about how Rosier had paid Rosenthal and the rest of them to find out the information.

"They cared about you being abused at all because of your fame," Hermione said, raising her voice. Yes, Draco was definitely awake, Harry realized, from the intake of breath behind him. "But I don't think they would say that parents could abuse their children."

"They wouldn't use that word, no," Harry said. "They would talk about 'appropriate disciplinary measures,' the way Fudge did when he was referring to what Umbridge should do to students." He lifted his right hand and held it out to Hermione. "No one investigated her and made sure that she wasn't using a Blood Quill. She _was _the one in power. That's the kind of thing the Ministry thinks is perfectly fine when it comes to Hogwarts. No, Hermione. I might act in support of Hogwarts primarily, but I'm not going to ignore anything that happens outside the school. Not when it might have an effect on the school."

"Will the election?" Hermione folded her arms, which was a little awkward with all the books in the way.

Harry gave her a look.

"Well, I mean, of course, in a way." Hermione waved her hand. "But does that give you a right to interfere?"

"It depends on what you mean," Harry said. "I won't try to control the voting. I might not even vote." He saw the significant, heavy look that Hermione was giving him, and his heart began to pound so hard that he had trouble swallowing. "But yes, I probably will watch it closely, and try to work with the Minister. If it's Draco."

"If it's Malfoy," Hermione whispered. "Harry."

"What would be wrong with working with someone who wouldn't try to screw the school over, the way Fudge always wanted to and Tillipop tried to?" Harry got up to walk back and forth. Since they'd probably already woken Draco up, he didn't have to stay still. "That doesn't mean I would march down to the Ministry and try to depose Tillipop if he's reelected. But Draco has done enough that he probably won't be, even if Draco doesn't win."

"You're talking about underhanded tactics." Hermione's voice was wavering, and her eyes were filling with tears. "The kinds of things the Wizengamot was afraid of you doing from the beginning. The kind of thing we went into the Ministry to _prevent_. Oh, Harry."

Harry turned around to face her. Hermione was maybe five feet away from him, but Harry could feel the vaster gulf opening between them, the gulf of reason and argument and perspective. He wondered what Hermione would say if she knew how many of his strategy discussions had been with Draco.

But Harry had handled the Ministry's last attack on the school by himself, and he'd handled punishing Fifernum and Rosier by himself, and he'd driven the Board of Governors out by himself. He wondered what else Hermione would have wanted him to do. Rolled over and given up the minute he realized that he was attracted to Draco? Send Draco away?

_Yes, probably_.

"Yes, I am," Harry said, deciding that Hermione wouldn't say anything else and that this was his only chance to convince her, if he even had one left. "As underhanded as you can say they are, when I announced to the Ministry that I was taking over Hogwarts and to consider me a Dark Lord. They should _know _what they're getting into when they continue to oppose me. But Draco acts differently. I don't plan to influence the voting, I told you. The adviser of his who was being blackmailed by Rosier doesn't even _like _me. I only found out that she'd been involved with gathering information about the abuse at all, and that Rosier was, because Rosier got nervous and blackmailed her. And he was nervous about me, not Draco."

"But he had to know about the association between you and Malfoy to get nervous," Hermione whispered.

Harry snorted. "He doesn't know anything. He made an assumption, and now he's paying for it."

Hermione put her hands to her cheeks, which were flaming with something that Harry didn't think was embarrassment, and closed her eyes. "I have to think about this," she murmured. "I have to think. I don't want to walk away in the middle of the year and leave the students without a History of Magic professor, but this…"

"Why is this so different from anything else I did?" Harry demanded, feeling as though someone had broken a splinter off his heart. "You can put up with me calling myself a Dark Lord and using Dark magic against the Ministry, but not sleeping with a candidate for Minister? Or associating with him?" There was still a sharp reminder in the middle of his chest that he hadn't slept with Draco, yet.

"I didn't think it had gone this far." Hermione closed her eyes tighter, clenching them. "That you favored him and it would probably be more comfortable for Hogwarts and you if he was Minister…I knew about _that_. I just didn't think it had gone this far."

"What is _different _about this?"

Hermione turned and looked him in the eye. "If you can say that, then you really aren't the man we used to know anymore."

Harry clenched his hands in front of him. He wanted to rip something, tear something up. That thing wasn't going to be Hermione, because he still knew better, felt better. But Hogwarts flipped the door of the office open and zipped a rag from Merlin knew where into his hands. Harry sank his fingers deep into the dangling threads along one side, and ripped at them.

"Well, maybe it's best you left," he whispered. "I thought you did understand."

"That you would influence the Ministerial election?" Hermione looked at him coldly. "No, I didn't."

Harry shook his head impatiently. "That I was outside the rules. That I'm going to do anything to keep Hogwarts safe, and if that means sleeping with Draco, I would do it. But, Hermione, I went to the Wizengamot and I made Hammon Rosier and Nigella Landen _both _blurt out that they wanted to fuck each other and then make out on the floor. Rosier's under a curse now that means he'll suffer what I did during my childhood if he ignores child abuse or hurts one of my people. Why is _that _acceptable but having Malfoy as my friend and lover isn't?"

Hermione put a hand to her mouth. Then she said, "I didn't… I didn't know about that."

"Believe it," Harry said. The rag was disintegrating to pieces in his hand. "That's what a Dark Lord does. I could have done a lot worse," he added softly, feeling the rage swirl and turn black in the back of his mind even now. "I still want to."

Hermione backed up a step from him. Harry watched her. He didn't think she was afraid of him, not really. This was something else.

"You said you would keep Hogwarts safe," Hermione whispered. "That was supposed to be the limits of your power."

Harry snorted. "Well, technically, I've already broken that promise. The fifty Aurors I disarmed a few nights ago might have left the school alone if I'd come with them. They really only wanted _me_, not Hogwarts. But the Ministry would just have closed it down again after that, so I felt justified in keeping it safe."

"Even that's different from this," Hermione whispered. "What does Malfoy's adviser being blackmailed have to do with you, anyway? Why couldn't you just leave it alone?"

"Because the reason she was being blackmailed had to do with me," Harry said. "She wasn't being threatened to stop Draco's campaign, or because she'd done illegal things in the name of Draco's campaign, but because she'd done things that were illegal against _me. _Rosier thought that exposing that would mean I would turn against her. She chose to trust that I wouldn't, and give me the truth instead. And after that, I had to act against him, didn't I? She'd placed her trust in me. I couldn't let him go on hurting her."

Hermione winced. "You can't protect the whole world the way you used to protect me and Ron in school, Harry," she whispered.

"Not the whole world, I know that," Harry said, startled into speaking the simple truth. "But the part of it that has to do with Hogwarts, and the part that applies to me for protection, I can."

Hermione opened her eyes. "So you aren't thinking like a politician, or a Dark Lord," she said. "Not really. You're thinking like _Harry_."

Harry smiled at her, wondering if that was a good thing. He couldn't tell whether or not she thought it was, from the expression on her face and the tone in her voice. "Yes. The only difference is that now I have the power to do what I want, instead of having to listen to Dumbledore when he tells me something isn't good for the war or the Ministry when they tell me I have to obey the rules."

Hermione shook her head mechanically. "You can't run a school like that. You can't be a Dark Lord like that."

"It's worked so far," Harry said. He didn't understand why she was edging towards the door. "I don't—Hermione, you _know _what kind of person I am. I've always wanted to protect the people who were nice to me. You can attribute that to growing up with the Dursleys if you want, but I've always been this way. What's changed?"

"Before, you never had that much power." Hermione took a long, slow breath, her hand feeling behind her for the doorknob. She didn't take her eyes off him. "Now, you do. You should have thought it through. You can't be as personal. You can't be as impulsive. You have to be a leader. You have to be a Lord."

"Maybe if I'd decided to take over the school as the Chosen One, I would have," Harry said. He calmed the stones that were rippling beneath Hermione. They wanted to tip her over and throw her out, and he didn't want to do that. They were reacting to his distress right now, not his real wishes. "But I didn't. I just took it over as myself. Who should I be, if not myself? Who should I rule like, but Harry?"

Hermione was trembling. "I thought you really did have a plan," she said. Tears shone on her cheeks. "I thought you were _thinking _about things. All that effort you went through to find good professors…I thought you _cared_."

"I do." Harry stood up and moved away from the couch that Draco was on, although he'd said something in a confused voice. Right now, Harry had to deal with this. "I care about the students. That's why I made sure to find good professors! I care about _you_. I'd defend you if the Ministry attacked you."

"I was being foolish." Hermione went on talking to herself. "I should have known better. I just wanted to think that you were too good a person to do everything on impulse, so I talked myself into going along with it. But I should have known better. It's my fault, not yours." She raised her eyes to Harry's face. "I can't go on being here. I have to go away and think. Can I support someone who just uses his power for personal things? I have to _think_."

Harry watched her with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He didn't know what he could say to convince her. He wasn't sure that he _could _say something to convince her. He had to let her make her own decisions.

Hermione nodded at him and put down the books she was carrying on a table near the door. "I resign," she said. "And Ron's probably going to resign with me." And she turned and walked out the door.

Harry sat down and put his face in his hands. The chair tried to touch his shoulders with its back, the table snaked beneath his elbows, the books flew around him and caressed his face with their riffling pages, and still nothing happened.

Still he couldn't get rid of this stifling feeling of failure.

But in the end, Harry stood up, sent a silent instruction through Hogwarts to make sure that nothing would block Ron and Hermione's passage out, and went over to the couch. Draco was frowning at him, as if sure that he knew Harry but unable to place him.

Harry kissed him on the forehead. "Hello, sweetheart," he whispered. "Why don't you go back to sleep? I don't have a cure for you yet, but I'll find one."

Draco nodded and closed his eyes, probably more obedient than he would be naturally thanks to the curse. Harry turned to the book he'd been reading and waited for his hands to stop shaking.

He could do nothing for people who rejected his protection. He didn't _want _to do anything for people who rejected his protection. Why should he? It would be misusing his power to force them to do things they didn't want to do.

At last, he could begin reading again.


	36. Shot and Staggering

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Six—Shot and Staggering_

"I don't know whether I should go with her or not, mate."

Harry continued standing with his back to Ron, facing the solitary window in the rooms Ron had taken. It overlooked the Quidditch pitch, and showed the rain drizzling steadily down, then hesitating, then taking over again. Everything out that window looked grey and crushed green and brown. Harry wished it was winter. Then it might look white instead. "You have to make the decision," he said, in a voice that sounded alien even to him. "You know I won't keep you here against your will."

"Cut that out, will you?" Ron came up behind him and dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. "You know I don't want to leave. I don't _want _to," he qualified, when Harry turned and stared at him.

"But you are," Harry said.

"I just said I don't know whether I should or not." Ron leaned a hip on the windowsill and stared down with him. Harry turned around and watched the pitch again. He wondered if Ron was remembering Gryffindor practices, the way he was, and the way they had flown in their games, Ron as Keeper and Harry as Seeker. Life had been simpler then, Harry thought. He had never seriously entertained the idea of a permanent break between him and his friends, no matter how annoyed he was.

"What's her problem, anyway?" Harry asked dully. He had replayed the conversation between himself and Hermione a dozen times over in his head since they had it, and still he couldn't find the key as to what had set her off this time. "I mean, I've fought back against the Ministry before this. Why is this the last straw?"

"It's not the Ministry," Ron said quietly. "She can accept you defending yourself, even if she disagrees with you about how you ought to do it. It's the election."

Harry shut his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. "She's afraid that I might interfere with it to make sure that Malfoy is elected."

"You can call him Draco in front of me," Ron said. "I'm a lot less blind than either you or Hermione think I am. I've seen the way you look at him."

Harry opened his eyes and turned to face him. "He saved my life at the Ministry today, Ron. Or at least my mental clarity. He's sacrificed some of his campaign to come and be with me. He's not as evil as she thinks he is."

"It's not even evil," Ron said, sounding a little sad. "She holds the electoral process sacred. If she knew about the Ministry doing something underhanded to make sure Tillipop is reelected, she would want to stop that, too. She fought for votes for house-elves, remember? But she does think that you let personal feelings run away with you. You could sacrifice all your principles for Malfoy, and it wouldn't surprise her in the slightest. It's the fear that you _might _that means she has to go away and think."

"She's afraid I might do that because I would sacrifice them for you and her," Harry muttered. "The way she thinks I did with taking over Hogwarts."

Ron nodded. "I reckon she decided she could live with that because you bonded with Hogwarts, and no one can change it." Some of the stones beneath Harry's elbows, where he leaned on the windowsill, vibrated as if to reassure him that they would challenge anyone who tried. "But she doesn't want to see you change the whole—the whole way that voting works. That's the way she thinks of it, as the free choice of people. You can give students the freedom to come to school. You can't take away their freedom to vote for who they like."

Harry stared down at his hands and sighed. "And she doesn't trust me not to do that."

"Not with someone personal involved." Ron's voice lowered. "Has he _asked _you for anything like that, mate? And would you do it to make him happy?"

"No, and I don't know," Harry said. "If I thought it would really make him happy and I could come up with some way to make sure that no one else would be hurt by it…" He shrugged, and looked into the distance. He had found a ritual that would free Draco from the spell on his mind, but it had to be cast exactly at sunset, and he still had almost an hour, from the angle of the light. "I might."

"That's exactly what she's afraid of," Ron said. "That she couldn't even talk you out of it or make you stop it because your power is so great."

"What about you?" Harry turned so that he could see Ron and Ron would hopefully miss the way the muscle in his jaw was jumping around. "Do you think that I would hurt someone who tried to stop me?"

"Unless it was one of us, I could see you doing it, for someone else you love." Ron met his eyes fearlessly. "But I would want to be there to try and stop it. As for your question, no, I'm not going with her. I want to stay here and see what happens. If someone needs to oppose you, I reckon they need to be right here to do it." He extended his finger and poked Harry in the shoulder. "And I want all that money you promised me."

Harry closed his eyes, needing the support of the stones on the windowsill now as his legs nearly dropped him. "Thank you."

"I have to go tell her now," Ron said, swinging away from the window and towards the door of his room. "Pray for me." He flashed Harry one smile and was gone.

* * *

"Draco? Draco, it's time to open your eyes now."

Draco slowly and obediently forced his eyes open. It had been comforting, to lie still on the couch that was in his master's room, and not have to do anything else. He didn't even feel hungry, he realized with a little start. Maybe his master had told him not to feel that way. Draco couldn't remember.

Now, though, he had to sit up when his master gestured, and follow his master to the center of the room. On the floor was a single white stone. Draco stared at it. A part of his mind that didn't have to listen to anything, that had its own memories of Potions ingredients and the days when he brewed, murmured recognition. It was a piece of quartz, and it flashed and glowed in the light from the candles that flickered along the walls.

"This is a ritual," said his master's voice. Draco turned and found him right at his side, his green eyes as bright as the stone, and focused on Draco himself. There was a time he would have been puffed up with pride at that, Draco thought, but he couldn't remember why. "You have to trust me. All right?"

It was either a command or something Draco already did, because he nodded without any trouble at all. "All right."

"Good." His master held out his hands, and motioned that Draco was to take them. Draco did, and his master murmured something that included the word "heat," but it wasn't loud enough for Draco to hear, so he didn't have to pay attention. "Hang onto me, and don't let go, whatever happens."

That was _definitely _an order. Draco obediently locked the muscles in his arms, so that he would stay still.

His master didn't draw his wand or start chanting, the way Draco would have expected of a ritual—though he also couldn't remember where he had learned that about rituals. Instead, his master closed his eyes, and pure magic rose from his body, from his clothes, even from the stones at his feet, swirling and dancing around him. Draco watched with his mouth open. His master hadn't forbidden _that, _at last.

The magic was colorless sometimes, and bright curls of white like the quartz sometimes, and as dark as the night other times, and a few swirls Draco couldn't see, only glimpse them by what they pushed, like wind. They all waltzed around his master, and his master began to speak in a droning chant. Draco couldn't hear whether it was an incantation or not. He couldn't take his eyes from the pure magic.

It might not be so bad to serve a master so powerful, after all.

_When did I think it would be a horrible thing to serve a master? _Draco wondered, because most of the thoughts that had filled his head in the last half-hour weren't like that at _all._

But his mind was changing. He could feel it. The magic was whirling around him as well as around his master—whose name, he remembered with shattering abruptness, was Harry—and he could feel it carving back the curtains that had hung over his thoughts.

Why had he allowed the curtains to stay there? This was much better, the sensation of clean wind blowing through crystal air in his mind.

Because he had been enchanted.

Yes, he could remember it now. He had snatched Harry and borne him to the floor of the corridor in the Ministry when the spell went off above them. It had been hard to tell what it did, but he had known that he needed to save Harry anyway. There was the possibility that Harry could save Draco if the magic harmed him, but Draco wouldn't be able to do anything for Harry if Harry was the one stricken.

And then Harry turned to him and looked deeply into his eyes, and the last compulsion to call him master and obey him frayed.

Draco clenched his hands on Harry's of his own free will now, because he understood how important the ritual was and that he mustn't break free. He flinched a little as the magic soared over his shoulder and slammed into the wall of the room. He didn't know why it did that, or what kind of ritual Harry was constructing that focused solely on that little piece of quartz, but that didn't really matter. He could feel the power of it.

Harry dropped his hands and turned back to the piece of quartz. Draco swallowed and observed him. Harry's face was narrow and dark, his eyes closed. He made two slashing motions with his hands, and the walls of his office rippled around them.

The piece of quartz shattered.

Draco ducked, but the flying splinters slammed into an invisible shield he hadn't even realized was there in front of him. Draco lifted his head slowly. He nodded once to Harry and said, in a voice that was hoarser than he had thought it would be, "I owe you my mind as well as my life, it seems."

"I don't know about you owing me your life recently." Harry gave him a tired smile. "And this was just me repaying the debt that I incurred when you pushed me to the ground out of the way of the spell. Thanks."

Draco reached out and ran a hand through Harry's tangled mess of hair, down his cheek and to the side. "How are you? Really?"

Harry caught his hand and turned it over to plant a quick kiss on the palm. "Fine. The main problem is that Ron and Hermione are both questioning my—my commitment to you, and Hermione decided to leave."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Over you being in love with a Malfoy? Or another man?" He hadn't thought Granger the sort to abandon her best friend over either short-sighted complaint.

Harry shook his head. "Over me being in love with a candidate for Minister. She thinks that I'll influence the election for you."

Draco sighed. "Not that I didn't think about asking you to do it, but it would only make you unhappy in the end, and I would have to bear the consequences if we ever had a fight and a falling-out." He paused, his hand tightening on Harry's. "What happened when you went in to confront the Wizengamot?"

Harry smiled and lifted his wand to touch his temple, pulling out a silvery strand of memory. "I think you need to watch the Pensieve memory to appreciate the full effect. I'm not sure that I could find the right words, anyway."

* * *

Watching Draco with his head in the Pensieve, laughing and spluttering at what he assumed were appropriate moments, Harry came to a decision.

He would do his best to keep his power in check, to only do things that would protect and expand the school, as he had promised Hermione he would do. And he wouldn't influence the election anymore. His relationship with Draco would have to stay a secret for a long time, perhaps forever. Or at least until Draco was done with the campaign or out of office, depending on which one came first.

But he also wouldn't back away from loving Draco, a man who had already risked more for Harry than Harry thought he would do for anyone except his parents. A man who had _introduced _Harry to his parents, taking the risk that things would go wrong between them given all their shared history.

He still didn't know what he would do if Draco asked him to intervene in the election, just as he'd confessed to Ron. On the other hand, he trusted Draco enough to think that Draco probably wouldn't _ask _him to intervene in the election.

On that trust, the balance had to hang.

He blinked and swallowed, and Draco pulled his head out of the Pensieve and swung around to face him, eyes so bright that Harry wondered for a second what words would come out of his mouth.

As it turned out, he didn't need to worry.

"That was _brilliant_," Draco whispered, and stared at him for a second as though he expected Harry to make a proclamation of genius, or for magic to fly out of his ears. Then he smiled, and it was a disconcerting smile, all narrow and sharp and nearly as bright as his eyes. "Far more brilliant than I thought you could manage without me right there to talk you through it."

Harry laughed. "Yes, well, I do have a talent for those kinds of things, if you remember from the way I punished Fifernum. I don't recall having your input on that, either."

"Mmm." Draco eyed him for another second, and his smile slowly grew across his face. "Did you realize something?"

"There are an infinite number of things that I haven't realized, and nearly as many things I have," Harry said loftily. "Which was this?"

"Earlier, I said that you loved me," Draco said. "That you were in love with me, perhaps I should put it. And you didn't deny it."

Harry blinked. Well. That was unexpected. He had thought it was like Draco to say, this way, that he knew Harry was in love with him, but perhaps instead he should say that that kind of declaration had lacked Draco's usual subtlety.

"Yes, I do," he said, staring at Draco and wondering if he would back down or break away. It seemed as likely as the fact that he would stay still and let Harry say it. "I love you for a lot of different reasons, and it's sudden and probably going to make one of my best friends even more upset when I tell her, but I love you."

Draco said nothing for silent seconds. Harry didn't know what was going to happen next, what he _expected _to happen. So he waited, and Draco came up and took his hands, the way he had during the ritual.

"Thank you," Draco whispered. "As close as I can reckon it—given that I don't really have any experience at this kind of emotion—I'm in love with you, too. For your brilliance and your care and your power and the fact that you would take all kinds of risks for _me_."

Harry became aware he was shivering, and not all the firelight on the hearth, straining towards him as Hogwarts sensed his distress and interpreted it as being cold, would make him stop. He moved in towards Draco and still Draco watched him come, steadily, more courageous than Harry had ever thought he could be.

He remembered again the risk Draco had taken. For _him_.

Harry put out his hands and gently took Draco's cheeks in them, his thumbs rubbing up near Draco's eyes. Draco sighed and tilted his head back, neck falling, riding the motion.

"Thank you," Harry said back, and kissed him.

The magic dancing through the kiss was more important to him than all the power that rose and danced around him in response.


	37. Up Against the Wall

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Seven—Up Against the Wall_

"But why are _you _here? Where's Professor Granger?"

Harry gave the staring students a faint smile and laid down the books he'd entered the classroom carrying on the nearest table. "I've taken over teaching the class for right now," he said easily. "Professor Granger had something she needed to research."

That made some of the students, a mixed class of fifth-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, relax; they knew even after short experience of her how much those words applied to Hermione, Harry thought. But one of the larger Hufflepuffs, who reminded Harry painfully of Cedric with darker hair, frowned and said, "How can you pick up in the middle of the lesson?"

"I've looked over Professor Granger's notes," Harry said, nodding at the books. "And I think I can help with practical demonstrations."

"What practical demonstrations?" That was a Ravenclaw near the back, who looked upset at the very thought of having to do anything but read. "This is History of Magic. We read books and take notes and write essays."

"I hope you'll still do all that," Harry said, with a stare that made some students scramble as if to show him that they had their parchment right in front of them. "But I can do some different things, too. What was Professor Granger in the middle of?"

Some students shifted as though they didn't want to tell him, but the Hufflepuff who _must _be related to Cedric cleared his throat and said, "Um. She was teaching us about how—how You-Know-Who got so powerful."

Harry laughed through his nose and said, "Well, then I can _really _show you something. I lived through that." He faced the table and gestured, twisting his hand through the gestures that felt right. So much of what he did with the magic that bound him to Hogwarts ran on instinct and assurance.

The stones of the floor took a minute to think about his request. Then they started popping up in the forms of masked and hooded figures, while dust formed the figure in the center. Harry made him as much like Voldemort as he could, with the noseless face and the bright red eyes that he formed of minute specks of iron in the bones of Hogwarts. Someone in the back of the classroom shrieked.

A braver Ravenclaw swallowed and raised her hand. Harry nodded to her.

"Did you really see a meeting like this?" The Ravenclaw was staring at the figures as though she expected them to collapse back into stone and dust at any moment, and also as though she was frightened out of her mind. But the Ravenclaw desire for knowledge had overcome her fear, Harry thought approvingly. Ron had said once that only Gryffindors would really want to break rules or know more outside the official classes, but anyone could. Any House's traits could let them survive. It just depended on how they applied them.

"Not exactly like this," Harry said, and waved his hand at the figures. They began to dissolve and spin around, and as he concentrated, the scene in the graveyard formed, the small ring of Death Eater figures standing back and concentrating on Harry bound to the stone and Voldemort rising from the cauldron. "That was more what you might call a _symbolic representation. _But this is something that really happened." He glanced at the students in the class. "Probably not while you were at Hogwarts, most of you. But I faced Voldemort after the Triwizard Tournament."

"How did that happen?" It was the same Ravenclaw. "I mean—my mother's cousin is Amos Diggory, but no one wanted to tell me at the time. They said I was too young."

Harry glanced at the list of names that Hermione had left in her room. "You're Annette Tolbalt?"

Tolbalt nodded cautiously, as though she suspected she would be punished because she hadn't identified herself at first. Harry nodded encouragingly back at her. "Well, I can tell you now. But be sure that you want to listen." He glanced around the class. "That applies to the rest of you, as well. I don't want to disgust or frighten you, but some of these things probably will. The truth almost always does."

One girl near the back of the room stood up and edged out. But everyone else still stayed still, including all the Hufflepuffs.

"Very well." Harry gestured, and the shadowy figures moved back and settled into the configurations that he remembered from the duel. "What happened was that I was being sickeningly fair and nice, and so was Cedric Diggory. He was a hero," he added quietly. "He died, but he was still a hero. And we both kept insisting that the other one should take the Triwizard Cup, when we both got through the maze that was the third task and arrived at the Cup at the same time…"

* * *

"You look badly-off, sir."

Draco waved his hand at Rosenthal without looking up from the parchment in front of him. "I don't feel very good. But we've already put off the party by one day. I don't want to put it off any more than that. You know as well as I do that the impression of weakness is usually more fatal than the weakness itself."

"Yes. Well. Sir."

Draco leaned back and tried not to wince as his head came to rest against the padded back of the chair. It was padded for a _reason, _after all. He ought to be able to bear that, and so should his aching head, no matter what had happened to cause it to hurt that way. "There's something specific wrong," he said. "Tell me. Has that bastard Rosier been blackmailing you again?"

Rosenthal gave him a faint smile. "No, sir. That threat has been taken care of, thanks to you and—Lord Potter." She sounded bothered by not knowing the exact etiquette of how to address a rising Dark Lord, Draco thought, amused. "It's—this." She took a piece of parchment from the sheaf she carried and extended it.

Draco barely had to look at it. He held up the parchment on the desk in front of him and shook it. "It's a twin to this one."

"The owl that you received this afternoon, sir?" Rosenthal shifted her hands as if she needed to have one free for her wand.

Draco nodded and laid the parchments side-by-side, studying them. He didn't recognize the hand, but that was trivial, given all the ways that writing could be disguised. What was important was the content.

And that was the same in both letters, bar a different name used to address the letter.

_Dear Candidate Malfoy, _said the letter that had come to him,

_I write this as a friend. I understand the benefits of allying with power, and I have done it in the past, myself. That does not mean that I wish to see you go down with the one you have bound yourself to, in this case, the one calling himself Dark Lord Potter._

_The Ministry can tolerate him no longer. His ignorance of the realities of power, his belief that only magic is necessary to make one formidable and important in the wizarding world, will destroy and damage more than him. It already has, if one considers the ramifications of his attacks on others and does not think of them as a type of personal vengeance._

_His ignorance of pure-blood laws, in particular, will destroy him._

_I believe the wizarding world needs strong and competent leaders, and that of all the candidates available to our populace in this election, you will do the best. But I also believe that you will not be able to succeed if you stay allied to Lord Potter. Consider this a warning. I will take no part in the Ministry's vengeance, but it will be launched no later than tomorrow._

There was no signature, which Draco thought wise, in a frustrating way. People who wrote these kinds of letters often couldn't resist the temptation to use some clever reference in their signature, and they ended up figured out far more easily than if they had used a bland closing. Or none, as this one did.

"You think it genuine?"

Draco leaned back and regarded Rosenthal curiously. "I thought you would tell me there was no doubt that it was."

Rosenthal's fingers toyed with a chain around her neck for a moment, and then came to rest on the edge of the desk. "After what Lord Potter did, after what I have _seen _him do, I am less inclined to believe it," she whispered. "The idea that someone would challenge him…"

"They do say that it's the Ministry, not them," Draco noted, turning back to the letter. "The Ministry is stupid enough to do anything."

"_Why _do you want to be in charge of them again?"

Draco glanced up, acknowledged the brief gleam of humor in her eyes with the tilt of his head, and answered it seriously. "Because I believe that they don't _have _to be stupid. And I think they can be smarter, and since they're in charge of the wizarding world and probably will be for the rest of my lifetime, well into the next one, I want them to act intelligently."

Rosenthal sighed. "I don't think we can cancel or change the party again without someone, more than the people who already suspect—" her hand brushed the parchment "—getting suspicious."

Draco shook his head. "No. I'll send a warning to Harry and hope that does something. He has his hands full, anyway, what with Granger leaving."

"That's not going to look good to people, either," Rosenthal murmured.

Draco flipped a brow at her. "I notice that you aren't suggesting retreat from the proximity of Potter's company anymore, though."

A frown flowed across Rosenthal's face and then vanished. "We've made our choices. _I _made the choice, when I decided that it was more important to stay and serve you, and tell Potter about the blackmail, then leave or try to accept that Rosier might force me to do something to you. I still think Potter's politics are sometimes foolish, but he took a risk to save me, and a bigger one for you, and I can't downplay that."

Draco nodded, pleased to hear so much good sense out of her, and sat up. "Make copies of these letters and owl them to Potter." He still had to call him that, and not Harry, in front of people, he thought, even if Rosenthal was closer to knowing the truth than anyone else in his camp. Draco wasn't about to let down his guard or get used to doing so. "That's all we can do right now. Now, what did Pansy say when you firecalled her?"

* * *

Harry turned around. He had just finished the last afternoon History of Magic class—fourth-year Slytherins and Gryffindors—and he had been trying to remember if he had _ever _been that young. Sure, he had done plenty of stupid things when he was a fourth-year. The circumstances and the Tournament demanded it. But surely he had never been that wide-eyed and that disbelieving that forces of evil existed in the world? Surely he had never spoken back to his professors in _quite _that distrustful and disrespectful tone of voice?

A ripple in the ground and through the stones of Hogwarts had alerted him that something was wrong, though. Harry moved slowly towards the window in this corridor, which looked out towards the Forest, wondering what kind of threat could warn him it was coming but still be hard to define.

Then he felt the leading edge of it, and he knew. He recoiled. It was Dark magic, foul and smoky, so thick and rank that he decided he couldn't call himself a Dark Lord yet. That was the kind of power he never wanted to use or touch.

He Apparated without conscious thought from the corridor to the top of the Astronomy Tower. He thought he might be able to see better from out there.

The only sight was a single wizard standing near the gates of Hogwarts. He hadn't tried to come through them. He wore a tattered cloak, but lots of people could have that, especially if they were coming through the Forbidden Forest. He did seem to notice the way Harry had appeared on the top of the Tower, because he tilted his head back to regard Harry.

Harry winced as those eyes found him. There was no way that he could make out features well from this distance—

Then the magic concentrated around his eyes, and Harry coughed. _Oh. _Sometimes he still forgot what he could do.

Fine, no way that he could make out features from this distance _without help_, but now he could see that the man was gaunt and old, with dark eyes that sparked as they met Harry's. He'd probably cast a Clear-Sight Charm that let him see Harry at least as well as Harry could see him right now. He waved his wand at the gates and then at his own throat, and his voice seemed to speak from the metal.

"A Dark Lord shouldn't fear to face a challenge from a former Dark Lord's servant."

Harry narrowed his eyes. This was one of the old Death Eaters? Well, that made sense. Harry didn't recognize him, but there were lots of people he had never known behind the anonymity of those white masks and dark cloaks.

The real question was why he had come here now. If he was one of the captured ones, he should have been in Azkaban. If he was a rogue, then he ought to have feared to alert the Ministry to his presence.

Then Harry gave a faint grin. _Of course, I'm hardly the first one likely to ask for help from the Ministry if a Death Eater shows up at my gates._

Harry laid his hand on the parapet and sent energy coursing through the stones, through the ground, and into the earth where the Death Eater stood. The man choked, gasped, and changed color, swaying, although all Harry had really sent was a feeling of his power, less like an electric shock than like the feeling that lightning was near.

"You stand on my ground," Harry said. "I don't even know your name. And I think you should be the one to fear facing a _current _Dark Lord."

The man stared at him, then snapped, "The name is Ignatius Yaxley. I have my reasons for coming here, and requesting a duel." As Harry opened his mouth and cast his mind back, trying to remember if Yaxley had been one of the Death Eaters captured by the Ministry, Yaxley lashed out with a hiss, and what looked like a thorny briar of black light unfolded from his wand.

It attacked Harry's wards, the magic that he had wrapped around his school and the stones and the students there. It sucked at them. Harry had never felt magic like that, and he hadn't built precautions into his wards against it. He flinched as he felt the steady pulling, the _swallowing _that resembled the way a large snake would feast on mice.

The trees that stood inside the gates of Hogwarts began to droop. A few small stones crumbled. Harry heard a shriek from the school, but even when he reached out through his bond with Hogwarts, he couldn't tell if it had come from a student who was hurt by something Yaxley had done or merely someone who was frightened.

Harry turned back to face Yaxley. He was glad to see that Yaxley started back as if he would Apparate away, but then he stood his ground. Good. He deserved to suffer for what he'd tried to do to Harry's domain, and Harry was going to make him suffer.

It did make him wonder if this was the test that the letters Draco had owled to him talked about, but Harry knew full well what the Ministry would do even if Yaxley won: claim that they had no knowledge of Yaxley's escape and they were glad that he had taken down a dangerous Dark Lord. But it was more likely he would lose, and it didn't benefit the Ministry to have Yaxley duel Harry and be wounded. Harry had no idea who it _did _benefit.

He moved, through the earth or the air he couldn't remember afterwards, and stood behind the gates in front of Yaxley a few seconds later. Yaxley just continued to watch him closely, as though he expected Harry to be weaker.

Then he said, "As the challenged, it falls to you to choose the ground."

Harry grinned. "The path that leads down to Hogsmeade." That was close enough to Hogwarts that he could draw strength from its stones, but not actually on the grounds. Harry didn't want Yaxley on his grounds right now. He would rip him apart from the inside out if Yaxley hurt one of his people, or even another of his trees.

Yaxley had a faint, wintry smile. Harry couldn't see why. No matter what happened, he wasn't going to win. Didn't he know that? Harry didn't know the particular spells he'd used, but he had more than enough sheer power to make up for his lack of knowledge. He tightened the web of magic around himself as he waited for Yaxley's response.

"And as the challenger, it falls to me to choose the rules, since I assume that we agree our magic is our weapon?" He looked at Harry, who nodded, wondering again if Yaxley was stupid. He could have restricted Harry to a wand as his weapon, and that might have allowed him some (small) chance of winning. "Very well. I choose the Baron's Blood Rules."

Harry narrowed his eyes. That meant to the death. "You won't back out?" he asked.

"I do not _want _to," Yaxley said, and fell back, and swept a bow. "Do you, Harry Potter, who calls yourself Dark Lord and Lord of Hogwarts, agree to abide by the Baron's Blood Rules?"

"I do," Harry said, and felt the magic settle into place around him and Yaxley, a great and glittering, visible ring that would surround them and hold them safe from any outside challenges. No one could cross that ring, either to help or hinder them, and it would only dissolve when one of them was dead.

Yaxley laughed at him with his mouth open and throat gaping, and turned to lead the way down to the Hogsmeade path. Harry marshaled his magic, still not quite understanding, but ready to give Yaxley wanted he wanted.

_And what he will find, for challenging me._


End file.
